Amalgamation of Cranio-maxillofacial Surgery and Technological Development.

How often should results go according to plan? No surgeon is perfect all the time, yet surgery is a discipline driven by results. Surgeons have therefore turned to technology to improve not only their outcomes but also how often they achieve high-quality results. Almost entire human creativity today, from the standpoint of its efficiency and expediency, is conditioned with the existence of technology. Progresses in computer-based technologies including virtual reality simulators, augmented reality, virtual plastic surgery software and computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing systems have resulted in new modalities for instruction and practice of oral and maxillofacial surgery. The efficiency offered by new technology to conventional model surgery can return hours to a surgeon's day through a more streamlined work-up and smoother intra-operative experience with confidence in the surgical accuracy. Continuous quality improvement has been a mantra in health care for many years. Surgeons are always looking to improve not only the quality of their results but also the consistency with which these results are achieved. To this end, new technology is being incorporated into or replacing traditional diagnostics and treatment planning.

Therapeutic potential of silymarin in chronic unpredictable mild stress induced depressive-like behavior in mice.

Silymarin, a plant-derived polyphenolic flavonoid of Silybum marianum, elicited significant antidepressant-like activity in an acute restraint stress model of depression. It improved monoamines, mainly 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) levels in the cortex, dopamine (DA) and norepinephrine (NE) in the cerebellum in mice. The present study was undertaken to explore the antidepressant potential of silymarin in chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) induced depressive-like behavior in mice, and to find out its probable mechanism(s) of action, mainly neurogenesis, neuroinflammation, and/or oxidative stress. The mice were subjected to CUMS for 28 days (4 weeks) and administered with silymarin (100 mg/kg and 200 mg/kg), or fluoxetine or vehicle from days 8 to 28 (3 weeks simultaneously). Animals were evaluated for behavioral changes, such as anhedonia by sucrose preference test, behavioral despair by forced swim test, and exploratory behaviors by an open field test. In addition, neurobiochemical alterations, mainly monoamines, 5-HT, NE, DA, neurotrophic factor BDNF, and cytokines, IL-6, TNF-α, oxidant-antioxidant parameters by determining the malondialdehyde formation (an index of lipid peroxidation process), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) activity in hippocampus and cerebral cortex along with serum corticosterone were investigated. Our findings reveal that mice subjected to CUMS exhibited lower sucrose preference, increase immobility time without affecting general locomotion of the animals, and reduce BDNF, 5-HT, NE, and DA level, increased serum corticosterone, IL-6 and TNF-α along with an oxidant-antioxidant imbalance in the hippocampus and cerebral cortex. Silymarin significantly reversed the CUMS-induced changes in the hippocampus and cerebral cortex in mice. Thus, the possible mechanism involved in the antidepressant-like activity of silymarin is correlated to the alleviation of monoaminergic, neurogenesis (enhancing 5-HT, NE, and BDNF levels), and attenuation of inflammatory cytokines system and oxidative stress by modulation of corticosterone response, restoration of antioxidant defense system in cerebral cortex and hippocampus.

Surgical Staples: A Superior Alternative to Sutures for Skin Closure After Neck Dissection-A Single-Blinded Prospective Randomized Clinical Study.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the efficacy of staples in skin closure after neck dissection in patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma. The authors hypothesized that the use of staples would result in better wound closure compared with the use of nonabsorbable monofilament sutures. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A prospective single-blinded randomized clinical trial was performed to compare various parameters, including time for wound closure, inflammatory changes, pain, cost efficacy, complications, and esthetic outcome of skin closure with surgical staples versus nonabsorbable monofilament sutures and to determine their statistical relevance using χ2 and Mann-Whitney U tests. RESULT: In a study of 124 patients, the mean skin closure time was 29.2 ± 4 minutes with sutures (n = 61) and 5.3 ± 1.29 minutes with staples (n = 63), which was significant (P = .01). Mean pain scores during removal using the visual analog scale were 5.08 ± 1.29 and 3.15 ± 0.89 with sutures and staples, respectively. Postoperative complications, such as gapping and stitch abscess with purulent discharge, were noted. CONCLUSION: Staples provided better esthetics with fewer complications, faster closure, minimal pain at removal, and faster healing compared with sutures. The slowest closure time in the staples group was 4 times faster than the fastest closure time in the sutures group. However, staples cost 5 times more than sutures.

Microwave assisted synthesis of novel pyrazolone derivatives attached to a pyrimidine moiety and evaluation of their anti-inflammatory, analgesic and antipyretic activities.

In the present research work, the motto was to develop new chemical entities as potential anti-inflammatory, analgesic and antipyretic agents. Various 4-(2-amino-6-(substituted)pyrimidin-4-yl)-3-methyl-1-(substituted)-1H-pyrazol-5(4H)-one derivatives (5a-5j) and their Schiff bases (6a-6j) were synthesized. The newly synthesized compounds were characterized by TLC and spectral data. The compounds containing pyrazolone and amino pyrimidine as basic moieties (5a-5j), were screened for their anti-inflammatory, analgesic and antipyretic activities, compounds 5a, 5c-5f, 5h exhibited activities nearly similar to the standard. The pharmacological studies reveal that the presence of 4-hydroxy, 4-methoxy, 4-(N,N-dimethylamino) or 2-hydroxy groups on phenyl ring at C6 of amino pyrimidine exhibits anti-inflammatory, analgesic and antipyretic activities nearly similar to the standard and substitutions like 4-chloro, 2-nitro, 3-nitro or 4-nitro on same phenyl ring lead to a decrease in activities.