Flow-mediated dilation of brachial artery and endothelial dysfunction in pregnant women with preeclampsia: a case control study.

AIM: Aim of the present study was to evaluate the association between endothelial dysfunction, evaluated through flow-mediated dilation (FMD) of the brachial artery, and preeclampsia. METHODS: A case-control prospective cross-sectional study was conducted on 81 pregnant women of between 20 and 39 weeks and 5 days, among whom 40 had preeclampsia and 41 were controls. The right brachial artery was identified using color Doppler, between 2 and 5 cm above the cubital fold. The diameter of the brachial artery was measured by calculating the distance between the proximal and distal intima (D1) during diastoles. Ischemia was caused for five minutes and the artery measurement was repeated 60 seconds after ending the compression (D2), during diastoles. The FMD (%) was calculated through the equation: (D2-D1)/D1 × 100. The association between independent variables and the presence of preeclampsia was estimated through odds ratios (OR) and their 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). RESULTS: Seventy-five percent of the pregnant women with preeclampsia and 26.8% of the normotensive women presented reduction in the diameter of the brachial artery (OR = 8.18; 95% CI: 2.74-25.04) (P = 0.000). A greater proportion of the pregnant women with pre-eclampsia (42.1% vs. 14.3%) had a history of a mother with hypertension during pregnancy (OR = 4.36; 95% CI: 0.89-23.51) (P = 0.045). CONCLUSION: We identified an association between endothelial dysfunction, evaluated through FMD of the brachial artery, and preeclampsia.

Antimicrobial activity and chemical composition of fixed oil extracted from the body fat of the snake Spilotes pullatus.

CONTEXT: Ethnozoological studies have shown that Spilotes pullatus Linn. (Colubridae: Ophidia), is associated with medicinal and magic-religious uses in Brazil. OBJECTIVES: This study was designed to determine the chemical composition of the oil extracted from the body fat of S. pullatus and to test its antimicrobial properties, alone and in association with aminoglycosides, against fungi and bacterial strains in concentrations ranging between 1024 and 0.5 µg/mL. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The snakes were collected in the Chapada do Araripe, county of Crato, Ceará State, Brazil. The oil was extracted in a Soxhlet apparatus using hexane. The methyl esters of the fatty acids present in the samples were identified using GC-MS. The antimicrobial and drug modulatory activities of oil were tested by microdilution against fungal and bacterial strains. RESULTS: The chemical composition of the fixed oils of S. pullatus identified 10 constituents representing 94.97% of the total sample. The percentages of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids were 33.59 and 61.38%, respectively, with the most abundant components being elaidic (37.26%). The oil did not demonstrate any antimicrobial or antifungal activity when tested alone, presenting MIC values ≥ 1024 µg/mL. However, when associated with antibiotics, it demonstrated synergistic effects with gentamicin against all the bacterial lineages assayed, and antagonistic effects with amikacin and neomycin against strains of Escherichia coli. CONCLUSIONS: Oil extracted from the body fat of S. pullatus did not demonstrate any inhibitory effects on bacterial or fungal activities, but was effective in modulating the effects of certain antibiotics.