Salivary ABO antigens and risk of microbial vaginosis.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of blood group ABO antigens on the risk of vaginosis. METHODS: The cross-sectional study was conducted at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Al-Yarmouk Teaching Hospital, Baghdad, Iraq, from April 2016 to June 2017. Two vaginal swabs and 1ml of stimulated saliva from women aged16-46 years were collected. The first swab was used for direct wet smear examination, while the second swab was cultured on aerobic and facultative anaerobic cultures on appropriate media. SPSS 25 was used for data analysis. RESULTS: Of the 269 patients with a mean age of 30.7}6.2 years, 52(19.3%) were positive and 217(80.7%) were negative for ABO antigen. The duration of vaginosis symptoms were observed after 7-13 days in both positive and negative groups (p=0.24).The main symptom in women with positive ABO was vaginal pain, while it was a foul smelling vaginal discharge and itching in women with the negative status (p=0.0001).Single bacterial species growth was obtained from 32(61.5%) positive patients and 81(37.3%) negative patients. CONCLUSIONS: ABO secretory status could increase defence against microbial vaginosis.

Neurocysticercosis: A new concept and insight into basic and future pharmacotherapy.

Neurocysticercosis is a neurological infection caused by the larva of taenia solium. The larva infection may affect different parts of the human brain and spinal cord, leading to focal neurological deficit with/without inflammatory reactions. Neurocysticercosis is one of the major causes of epilepsy in the developing countries. It is of two types. One is extra-parenchymal neurocysticercosis in which cysticerci cysts at subarachinoid space and ventricles lead to obstructive hydrocephalus and increase in the intracranial pressure. The other type is intra-parenchymal neurocysticercosis in which the cysticerci cyst grows inside the brain parenchyma, causing the feature of space-occupying lesion. The common presentation of intra-parenchymal neurocysticercosis is secondary epilepsy which is due to focal lesion and/or local inflammatory reactions. Cysticidal therapy increases the risk of seizure due to the induction of host inflammatory reactions. Therefore, coadministration of corticosteroids reduces the risk of seizure through attenuation of inflammatory reactions and brain oedema. Praziquantel alone or in combination with albendazole is regarded as the basic cysticidal therapy against neurocysticercosis. Newer drugs and agents are recommended to overcome the partial failure of standard cysticidal therapy.