Expression of CD4+ and CD8+ Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma and Their Relationship With Clinicopathological Parameters: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Background Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the most common malignant neoplasm of the oral cavity. The tumor microenvironment (TME) is a dynamic ecosystem composed of components contributed by both the tumor and the host. The immune cells of TME, mainly CD4+ and CD8+ tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), suppress the proliferation of cancer cells and play a crucial role in the progression of OSCC. The present study aims to analyze the immunohistochemical expression of CD4+ and CD8+ TILs in OSCC and to compare and correlate them with clinicopathological parameters. Methodology A total of 75 formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded samples of cases diagnosed with primary OSCC were immunostained with CD4+ and CD8+ antibodies and their expression was compared with the clinicopathological parameters. Results There was a significant positive correlation between CD4+ and CD8+ expression (r = 0.655, p = 0.001). Both CD4+ (r = -2.37, p = 0.041) and CD8+ (r = -0.348, p = 0.002) expressions negatively correlated with the TNM stage (r = -2.37, p = 0.041) of OSCC. CD8+ expression positively correlated with histopathological grade (r = 0.288, p = 0.012). Conclusions The study findings suggest that CD4+ cells are essential to maintain and sustain CD8+ TIL-mediated anti-tumor response. CD4+ and CD8+ TILs are key players in cell-mediated adaptive immunity and prevent tumor progression and metastasis. Strikingly, the higher grade of tumors despite heavy CD8+ infiltration may possibly be due to cancer immunoediting.

Polyradiculopathy and Multiple Cranial Nerve Palsies - Rare Manifestations of Cerebral Venous Sinus Thrombosis.

We report about two young males who developed significant proximal weakness of all four limbs secondary to intracranial hypertension due to intracranial venous sinus thrombosis. Intracranial venous sinus thrombosis can manifest in a variety of ways which includes isolated intracranial hypertension, focal neurological symptoms or signs and acute or subacute encephalopathy. Various false localising signs have been reported to occur in patients with raised intracranial pressure including cranial nerve palsies and extensive radiculopathy. In a patient presenting with flaccid areflexic quadriparesis and papilledema, the possibility of a potentially reversible dysfunction of the cranial nerves and spinal nerve roots due to a marked rise in intracranial and intraspinal pressure must be recognised. Lumboperitoneal shunt to reduce the intraspinal pressure on the spinal nerve roots has been advocated to reverse the symptoms of extensive radiculopathy in such patients. Both of our patients showed remarkable improvement in symptoms and signs with medical treatment of CVT.

Recurrent mucormycosis - Better understanding of treatment and management.

Mucormycosis is a rare opportunistic, aggressive, fatal fungal infection. The fungal organisms are ubiquitous and easily affect immunocompromised patients. It is spread on inhalation, inoculation and wound contamination and is more common in diabetic and other immunocompromised individuals in a population. The clinical and radiological features of Mucormycosis can overlap with other conditions for which a thorough diagnosis should be made. The rate of recurrence in Mucormycosis cases is high. This article reports one such case in which recurrence occurred twice and was controlled only with resection. The main aim of this article is to emphasize the importance of practicing aggressive resection and also on regular follow up of the patient after surgical management. Knowledge on different diagnostic and treatment methods, availability of newer drugs and regular follow up can greatly help in the management and recurrence of Mucormycosis even in immunocompromised patients in a population where diabetes is more common and mortality of rhino cerebral form is high.

A Review of Protein Structure Prediction Using Lattice Model.

The prediction of the tertiary structure of a protein from its primary sequence is a long-standing problem for life science researchers. Solutions to this problem have a direct impact on other research areas such as design and discovery of new drugs, understanding the sequenced genomic data, solving the puzzle of protein structure, and understanding the folding mechanism. Solving protein structure prediction (PSP) is considered a cornerstone for life science research to reveal the mechanism of cellular processes; it has been an open problem for past six decades. Globally, various research institutes are working toward a solution to PSP with different methods. In this paper, we present a review of de novo PSP using hydrophobic-polar lattice model. In the hydrophobic-polar model, the PSP problem is defined as a combinatorial optimization problem with an objective of finding the protein structure having the lowest free energy. This study is bounded to two key factors. The first is application of the evolutionary search algorithms for PSP, and the second is the evolution of the modeling method and its corresponding potential energy function. The goal of this paper is to give sufficient biological background to understand the fundamentals of proteins, their structure, and available computational methods.

A Comparative Study on Single and Multiple Point Crossovers in a Genetic Algorithm for Coarse Protein Modeling.

The protein structure prediction problem is a holy grail for life science researchers. Computational protein structure prediction involves the folding of protein sequence (string) into the tertiary structure, called the native protein structure. The hydrophobic polar (HP) model is one of the basic models used to investigate the protein folding mechanism at the coarse level. In the HP model, the protein structure prediction problem is defined as an optimization problem, where the protein sequence must be folded over a lattice space such that the protein structure exhibits the lowest value of free energy. However, with the HP model, protein structure prediction is a nondeterministic polynomial (NP)-complete problem and is, therefore, simulated using meta-heuristic algorithms. Simulation of the HP model results in the formation of various protein structures called protein conformations. In this article, we present a case study on the application of a genetic algorithm to simulate the HP model based protein structure prediction. In this work, we employ the two versions of crossover functions (single-point vs. multiple-point crossovers) to generate protein conformations. The conformations were assessed based on the presence of hydrophobic contacts identified in the experimental structure. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of simulation algorithm (genetic algorithm) were compared, and the significance of the parameters was statistically evaluated using the paired t-test. Our results indicate that the multipoint crossover operator enhanced the performance of genetic algorithm compared to genetic algorithm with single-point crossover. Also, multipoint crossover reduced the generation of false conformations, which results in a significant reduction in computational cost.

Obstructive Sleep Apnea.

Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) is a potentially serious disorder attacking millions of people around the world. Many of these individuals are undiagnosed, and even though diagnosed often exhibit a poor compliance with the use of continuous positive airway pressure at nights, a very effective nonsurgical treatment. A variety of surgical procedures have been proposed to manage and treat OSA. This article throws insights into assessing the sites of obstruction and a number of surgical procedures designed to address OSA. The scope of this article is to provide information to dentists which enables them to identify the patients who have OSAS and to guide these patients in making informed decisions regarding treatment options.

A Clinicopathologic Study of Oral Changes in Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease, Gastritis, and Ulcerative Colitis.

OBJECTIVES: The aim and objectives of this study are to identify oral changes in certain gastrointestinal (GI) diseases, namely gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), ulcerative colitis, gastritis, and to evaluate these oral symptoms as indicators for assessing GI disorders. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this study, the oral manifestations of various GI disorders were assessed in a varying age group of 250 patients in Government Stanley Medical College and Hospital, Chennai. Out of 250 patients, 142 were affected by GERD, 99 were affected by gastritis, and 9 patients were affected by ulcerative colitis. Of these patients, 177 were males and 73 were females. RESULTS: Evaluation of patients with gastritis revealed that 66.7% affected with gingivitis, 19.2% with dental erosion on the palatal and lingual aspects of maxillary and mandibular teeth predominantly in the anterior region, 10.1% with periodontitis, 2% with gingival erythema. Among the patients with GERD, 44% of the cases showed dental erosion, 25.5% periodontitis, 9.9% gingivitis, 5.7% gingival erythema, 2.8% palatal erythema, 2.1% gingival ulcers, glossitis 2%, 1.4% floor of the mouth erythema, and 0.7% erythema of the tongue. Patients with ulcerative colitis showed 44.4% of gingival erythema, 33.3% of dental erosions, and 22.2% of gingival ulcers and periodontitis. CONCLUSION: In our study of 250 patients, oral manifestations were observed in 88% of the patients. Both soft tissue and hard tissue changes were evident. There was a high correlation between various GI disease and dental erosion, erythema at various sites of the oral cavity, oral ulcers, gingivitis, periodontitis, and glossitis. Careful evaluation of oral cavity may unveil many GI disorders and help the patient by providing early diagnosis, which further facilitates the prognosis.

Gene therapy in oral cancer: a review.

Gene therapy is the use of DNA as an agent to treat disease. Gene therapy aims at the insertion of a functional gene into the cells of a patient for the correction of an inborn error of metabolism, to alter or repair an acquired genetic abnormality, and to provide new function to the cell. Many experiments have been done with respect to its application in various diseases.Today, most of the gene therapy studies are aimed at cancer and hereditary diseases which are linked to genetic defects. Cancer usually occurs due to the production of multiple mutations in a single cell which cause it to proliferate out of control. Several methods such as surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy have been used widely to treat cancers. But, the cancer patients who are not helped by these therapies can be treated by gene therapy. The purpose of this article is to review the use and purpose of gene therapy in oral cancer.

The application of vizilite in oral cancer.

This article depicts the various applications of Vizilite plus in oral cancer. The oral cavity demonstrates a variety of red and white, pigmented and vesiculo- bullous lesions. Oral cancer still happens to carry the highest mortality worldwide, especially in India. In India, the prime focus is on the downstreaming of oral cancer from an advanced stage to an early diseased state. The techniques that are promoted to facilitate an earlier detection and diagnosis of an oral malignancy include Toluidine blue, ViziLite Plus with TBlue, ViziLite, Microlux DL, Orascoptic DK, VEL scope, Oral CDx and brush biopsy.

Out of plane mode conversion and manipulation of Surface Plasmon Polariton waves.

We propose a rigorous design method of structured gratings for out of plane mode conversion, line focusing and manipulation of Surface Plasmon Polariton (SPP) waves. Employing a blazed grating to incorporate the directionality of SPP launch, and at the same time controlling grating depth and chirp to account for the radiation loss and diffraction angle, it was possible to achieve high efficiency and flexible SPP to freespace mode conversion. Devices with advanced functionalities, such as balanced SPP power splitter, and SPP wavelength demultiplexer are demonstrated with over 75% of power efficiencies at reasonable working distances of less than several wavelengths.

Efficient storage and transmission of digital fundus images with patient information using reversible watermarking technique and error control codes.

Handling of patient records is increasing overhead costs for most of the hospitals in this digital age. In most hospitals and health care centers, the patient text information and corresponding medical images are stored separately as different files. There is a possibility of mishandling the text file containing patient history. We are proposing a novel method for the compact storage and transmission of patient information with the medical images. In this technique, we are using a reversible watermarking technique to hide the patient information within the retinal fundus image. There is a possibility that these medical images, which carry patient information, can get corrupted by the noise during the storage or transmission. The safe recovery of patient information is important in this situation. So, to recover the maximum amount of text information in the noisy environment, the encrypted patient information is coded with error control coding (ECC) techniques. The performance of three types of ECC for various levels of salt & pepper (S & P) noise is tabulated for a specific example. The proposed system is more reliable even in a noisy environment and saves memory.

Extraordinary magnetic field enhancement with metallic nanowire: role of surface impedance in Babinet's principle for sub-skin-depth regime.

We propose and analyze the "complementary" structure of a metallic nanogap, namely, the metallic nanowire for magnetic field enhancement. A huge enhancement of the field up to a factor of 300 was achieved. Introducing the surface impedance concept, we also develop and numerically confirm a new analytic theory which successfully predicts the field enhancement factors for metal nanostructures. Compared to the predictions of the classical Babinet principle applied to a nanogap, an order of magnitude difference in the field enhancement factor was observed for the sub-skin-depth regime nanowire.

Performance comparison of delay-interferometer based direct detection oDOPSK receivers.

Performance evaluation of five different delay-interferometer based direct detection optical differential octal phase-shift keying receivers is reported. The performance is evaluated under an amplified spontaneous emission noise limited scenario using the well known Karhunen Loeve series expansion method. The classification of receivers into five different types is based on either the receiver schematic or the algorithm/methodology employed for symbol estimation.