Autologous NK cells propagated and activated ex vivo decrease senescence markers in human PBMCs.

Aging is a multifactorial process involving many steps including senescence. The immune system plays a critical role in aging where chronic inflammation and senescence has been shown to be detrimental. Natural killer (NK) cells are the predominant innate lymphocyte subset that mediate various responses to include surveillance and elimination of senescent cells. Here, we use autologous propagated and activated NK (aNK) cells from 5 patients to demonstrate that aNK cells decrease senescent cells in vitro and immunosenescence in humans based on markers p16 and ß-galactosidase. In addition, inflammatory cytokine panel data suggest a role for removal of immunosenescence to reduce the aging-related inflammatory response.

Oral Health Status of Patients with Repaired Cleft Lip and Palate in Central Vietnam.

PURPOSE: To determine the oral hygiene habits, levels of dental caries, and periodontal condition of patients with repaired cleft lip and/or palate (CL/P) in Central Vietnam. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 78 patients (1-54 years old; median: 6 years) with CL/P were examined for dental caries, gingivitis and periodontitis using the decayed, missing, and filled teeth (dmft/DMFT) index, gingival bleeding on probing and periodontal pocket depth. Data about dental visits, brushing habits and socioeconomic status were collected. RESULTS: A majority of patients brushed their teeth at least once a day with fluoride dentifrice but did not floss. The caries prevalence was 87.2%. The dmft of patients aged ≤ 5 years and 6-12 years were 7.4 and 9.0. The DMFT of patients aged 6-12 years, and ≥ 13 years were 1.6, and 6.7; the difference was statistically significant (p < 0.05). The percentages of patients who had bleeding on probing and had periodontal pocket depth 3.5-5.5 mm were 57.7% and 5.3%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with repaired CL/P in Central Vietnam had a very high level of caries and had signs of gingivitis but not periodontitis. It is recommended to implement dental care in the treatment protocol for patients with CL/P.

Temporomandibular Disorder Signs, Occlusal Support, and Craniofacial Structure Changes Among the Elderly Vietnamese.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of study was to determine the association between signs of temporomandibular disorders (TMD), occlusal support, and alterations in the craniofacial structure of elderly Vietnamese by using cephalometric analysis. METHODS: The cross-sectional study consisted of 244 participants aged 65-74 years. Participants were examined for signs of TMD, including limited mouth opening, temporomandibular joint (TMJ) crepitus, TMJ tenderness, and muscle tenderness. Dentition was divided into four occlusal support zones based on occluding pairs of posterior teeth by using Eichner's classification: Class A = 4 support zones; Class B = 1-3 support zones or only contact in anterior teeth; Class C = 0 support zones. Fifteen angular and seven linear parameters were used for sagittal craniofacial skeleton analysis. RESULTS: 10.3% of participants had limited mouth opening, 49.6% TMJ crepitus, 16.3% TMJ tenderness, and 24.2% muscle tenderness; 45.5% had Class A occlusal support, 38.5% Class B, and 16.0% Class C. Those with Class C had significantly smaller ramus inclination, articular angle, and angles formed by the mandibular plane and shorter facial height compared to Class A and Class B (P < .001). TMD signs were significantly associated with: angles formed by mandibular plane, gonial angle, cranial base angle, effective mandibular length, and anterior facial height (P < .05). CONCLUSIONS: The alteration of craniofacial structures was significantly associated with TMD signs among elderly Vietnamese. The higher number of lost occlusal support zones, the more significant the changes to craniofacial structures.

Nasolabial aesthetics of patients with repaired unilateral cleft lip and palate: A comparison of three rating methods in two countries.

OBJECTIVES: The study aimed to compare nasolabial aesthetics of patients with unilateral cleft lip and palate (UCLP) treated in Vietnam and Estonia using three rating methods: five-point aesthetic index, a visual analogue scale (VAS), and reference scores method. METHODS: A total of 56 patients with repaired UCLP (23 from Vietnam and 33 from Estonia) were included in this cross-sectional study. Patients' facial and profile photographs were cropped to reveal the nasolabial region and coded. Five examiners rated nasolabial aesthetics of the patients using three methods: five-point aesthetic index, 100 mm VAS, and reference scores method. Intraclass correlation coefficients were used to evaluate intrarater and interrater reliabilities. RESULTS: The five-point aesthetic index had a higher reliability than VAS and reference scores method. The least aesthetic feature among Vietnamese and Estonian patients was nasal symmetry and nasolabial profile respectively. No differences in nasolabial aesthetics were found between Vietnamese and Estonian patients regardless of the rating methods (p > 0.05) except for nasal symmetry. CONCLUSIONS: The five-point aesthetic index seems to produce more reproducible results. There were no significant differences in nasolabial aesthetics between the two countries. Overall average nasolabial appearance results were obtained using different treatment protocols in the two countries.

Oral Health Behaviour and Oral Health Status of Elderly Vietnamese.

PURPOSE: To describe oral health behaviours and problems among elderly Vietnamese as well as determine their prevalence of caries and periodontal disease. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This cross-sectional study examined 258 elderly persons aged 65-74 years living in Danang, Vietnam. All subjects self-reported oral health behaviour and problems. Dental caries was assessed using the DMFT index. Periodontal status was evaluated with the modified Community Periodontal Index, whereby all teeth were examined for gingival bleeding and periodontal pocket depth (PPD), and the index teeth were assessed for clinical attachment loss (CAL). RESULTS: 48.4% of the elderly brushed their teeth at least twice a day; 34% had never visited a dentist; 27.8% often had difficulty chewing foods. Of the sample, mean DMFT was 14.3 ± 8.7 (DT = 6.4 ± 5.5, MT = 7.7 ± 7.1, and FT = 0.2 ± 0.9), 88.8% had untreated caries, 21.0% had at least one tooth with a PPD ≥ 6 mm, and 49.8% had at least one sextant with CAL ≥ 6 mm. The mean number of teeth per person was 22.0, of which 19.5 teeth (88.6%) had gingival bleeding, 7.7 teeth (37.1%) with a PPD 4-5 mm, and 0.8 teeth (5.0%) with a PPD ≥ 6 mm. The mean number of sextants with CAL 4-5 mm and CAL ≥ 6 mm were 2.5 ± 2.0 and 1.3 ± 1.7, respectively. Rural residence was found to be negatively associated with MT, FT, and healthy periodontal status (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Dental diseases are prevalent among elderly Vietnamese owing to a lack of awareness of oral health self-care behaviours, especially among those living in rural areas. This suggests that an oral health care programme is required to improve the oral health status of elderly Vietnamese.

Early Childhood Caries and Risk Factors in Vietnam.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate caries prevalence and examine its relationship with socioeconomic status and oral health behavior of Vietnamese kindergarten children. STUDY DESIGN: The study was carried out on 1,028 children aged 2-5 years in six kindergartens in Thua Thien Hue province, Vietnam. Information about socioeconomics and oral health behaviors was collected through a self-administered questionnaire, and oral health status by clinical dental examination. RESULTS: Clinical dental examination found that overall caries prevalence and mean dmft were 89.1% and 9.32. Caries prevalence and mean dmft increased greatly from two years to three years old, and gradually developed from three years to five years old. A logistic regression revealed that caries had an inverse relationship with mothers' educational level and a positive relationship with the habit of retaining food in the mouth for a long time in two-year-old children. Prolonged breastfeeding, more frequent sweets consumption, no thumb sucking habit, and higher modified debris index score were the risk factors for caries among three-to-five-year-old children. CONCLUSIONS: This study indicated a high prevalence of caries and related risk factors such as low mother's educational level and inappropriate oral health behavior among kindergarten children in Vietnam.

Occlusal Support and Temporomandibular Disorders Among Elderly Vietnamese.

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to analyze the associations between missing teeth, occlusal support, and temporomandibular disorders (TMD) among elderly Vietnamese. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study consisted of 145 TMD and 112 non-TMD (control group) participants aged 65 to 74 years. TMD was evaluated using Diagnostic Criteria for Temporomandibular Disorders (DC/TMD) Axis I. An occlusal unit (OU) was defined as the cusp of a tooth coupled with the fossa of its antagonist tooth. A premolar pair was counted as one OU and a molar pair as two OUs. Dentition was divided into four occlusal support zones (OSZs) based on occluding pairs of posterior teeth by using Eichner classification: Class A had 4 OSZs, Class B had 1 to 3 OSZs or only anterior teeth, and Class C had no OSZ. RESULTS: The TMD group lost significantly more posterior teeth (mean ± SD 5.1 ± 4.7) than the control group (4.0 ± 3.9, P = .033). The mean ± SD OUs of the TMD and control groups were 5.1 ± 4.6 and 6.0 ± 4.3, respectively, which was nonsignificant (NS). The distribution of Class A (40.7%), Class B (40.0%), and Class C (19.3%) among the TMD group was not significantly different from the control group (50.0%, 38.4%, and 11.6%, respectively, NS). The odds of having TMD were positively associated with total unilateral loss of OUs (OR = 3.4, 95% CI = 1.2-9.4, P = .020) and total bilateral loss of OUs (OR = 2.7, 95% CI = 1.2-6.6, P = .027). CONCLUSION: Total loss of OSZs on one or both sides of the mouth were found to be predictors of TMD among elderly Vietnamese.

An evaluation of the Participatory Action-Oriented Training (PAOT) program in small enterprises in Vietnam.

OBJECTIVES: Participatory Action-Oriented Training (PAOT) has been known as a practical training methodology for improving health and safety at work, particularly for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Our hypothesis is that PAOT is a better approach than a traditional local method, and the objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of PAOT and to make suggestions for improvement. METHODS: An intervention was performed for one year at 20 volunteer SMEs. PAOT was applied in 10 factories, and a traditional local method was applied in the other 10 SMEs as a control. Two cross-sectional studies were performed consisting of a questionnaire and environmental measurements. Data were also collected on the number of factory improvements, productivity, worker income, accidents, and health costs. RESULTS: There were significant improvements among the intervention factories in terms of work environment, number of improvements and health costs between the pre- and post- intervention phases. In terms of productivity, significant increases were seen in the civil engineering, metal, garment, and rice mill industries in the intervention group, while the metal casting and, garment industries in the control group also showed significant increase in productivity. CONCLUSIONS: The findings support the idea that a PAOT program produces better outcomes in SMEs. It is recommended that a PAOT program be widely applied to SMEs to improve health and safety. A fuller examination could be obtained with more environmental measurements taken over a much longer period of time, together with data on sickness absence and accidents that have been independently validated.

Profiling the humoral immune response to infection by using proteome microarrays: high-throughput vaccine and diagnostic antigen discovery.

Despite the increasing availability of genome sequences from many human pathogens, the production of complete proteomes remains at a bottleneck. To address this need, a high-throughput PCR recombination cloning and expression platform has been developed that allows hundreds of genes to be batch-processed by using ordinary laboratory procedures without robotics. The method relies on high-throughput amplification of each predicted ORF by using gene specific primers, followed by in vivo homologous recombination into a T7 expression vector. The proteins are expressed in an Escherichia coli-based cell-free in vitro transcription/translation system, and the crude reactions containing expressed proteins are printed directly onto nitrocellulose microarrays without purification. The protein microarrays are useful for determining the complete antigen-specific humoral immune-response profile from vaccinated or infected humans and animals. The system was verified by cloning, expressing, and printing a vaccinia virus proteome consisting of 185 individual viral proteins. The chips were used to determine Ab profiles in serum from vaccinia virus-immunized humans, primates, and mice. Human serum has high titers of anti-E. coli Abs that require blocking to unmask vaccinia-specific responses. Naive humans exhibit reactivity against a subset of 13 antigens that were not associated with vaccinia immunization. Naive mice and primates lacked this background reactivity. The specific profiles between the three species differed, although a common subset of antigens was reactive after vaccinia immunization. These results verify this platform as a rapid way to comprehensively scan humoral immunity from vaccinated or infected humans and animals.