In vitro and in vivo evaluation of chlorhexidine salts as potential alternatives to potassium dichromate for Eimeria maxima M6 oocyst preservation.

Introduction: Coccidiosis caused by the Eimeria spp., an Apicomplexan protozoon, is a major intestinal disease that affects the poultry industry. Although most cases of coccidiosis are subclinical, Eimeria infections impair bird health and decrease overall performance, which can result in compromised welfare and major economic losses. Viable sporulated Eimeria oocysts are required for challenge studies and live coccidiosis vaccines. Potassium dichromate (PDC) is typically used as a preservative for these stocks during storage. Although effective and inexpensive, PDC is also toxic and carcinogenic. Chlorhexidine (CHX) salts may be a possible alternative, as this is a widely used disinfectant with less toxicity and no known carcinogenic associations. Methods: In vitro testing of CHX gluconate and CHX digluconate exhibited comparable oocyst integrity and viability maintenance with equivalent bacteriostatic and bactericidal activity to PDC. Subsequent use of CHX gluconate or digluconate-preserved Eimeria oocysts, cold-stored at 4°C for 5 months, as the inoculum also resulted in similar oocyst shedding and recovery rates when compared to PDC-preserved oocysts. Results and discussion: These data show that using 0.20% CHX gluconate could be a suitable replacement for PDC. Additionally, autofluorescence was used as a method to evaluate oocyst viability. Administration of artificially aged oocysts exhibiting >99% autofluorescence from each preserved treatment resulted in no oocyst output for CHX salt groups.

Merkel cell carcinoma in the hand. Report of two cases.

Merkel-cell-carcinoma of the hand is rare. The Pathological and Immunohistochemical diagnosis helps us to focus the treatment. Immunotherapy has shown beneficial effects in unresectable/advanced/metastatic stages. The quantification of antibodies against Merkel-cell-polyomavirus (MCPyV) can be a useful for prognosis and follow-up. A wide margin in surgery and the sentinel node are the first option with Radiotherapy.

Waveform prototype-based feature learning for automatic detection of the early repolarization pattern in ECG signals.

OBJECTIVE: Our aim was to develop an automated detection method, for prescreening purposes, of early repolarization (ER) pattern with slur/notch configuration in electrocardiogram (ECG) signals using a waveform prototype-based feature vector for supervised classification. APPROACH: The feature vectors consist of fragments of the ECG signal where the ER pattern is located, instead of abstract descriptive variables of ECG waveforms. The tested classifiers included linear discriminant analysis, k-nearest neighbor algorithm, and support vector machine (SVM). MAIN RESULTS: SVM showed the best performance in Friedman tests in our test data including 5676 subjects representing 45 408 leads. Accuracies of the different classifiers showed results well over 90%, indicating that the waveform prototype-based feature vector is an effective representation of the differences between ECG signals with and without the ER pattern. The accuracy of inferior ER was 92.74% and 92.21% for lateral ER. The sensitivity achieved was 91.80% and specificity was 92.73%. SIGNIFICANCE: The algorithm presented here showed good performance results, indicating that it could be used as a prescreening tool of ER, and it provides an additional identification of critical cases based on the distances to the classifier decision boundary, which are close to the 0.1 mV threshold and are difficult to label.

Prevalencia de caries dental en pacientes del Régimen Subsidiado atendidos en la ESE Hospital Bellosalud municipio de Bello, 2008 / Prevalence of dental caries in patients of the subsidized system treated at the ESE Bellosalud Hospital, 2008

Introducción y Objetivo: La caries dental es la enfermedad oral de mayor prevalencia en la población adolescente colombiana y sus efectos aumentan con la edad. La resistencia a la caries no solo está determinada por el sistema inmune, sino también por compuestos antibacterianos no específicos, propiedades fisicoquímicas del esmalte, ingesta de carbohidratos entre otros. El objetivo fue determinar la prevalencia de caries en pacientes del Régimen Subsidiado atendidos durante el año 2008 en la Empresa Social del Estado (ESE) Hospital Bellosalud. Materiales y Métodos: Se realizó un estudio descriptivo retrospectivo, mediante muestreo aleatorio simple se seleccionaron 365 historias clínicas de manera proporcional en las dos sedes. Resultados: La prevalencia de caries durante el año 2008 en la ESE Hospital Bellosalud fue de 84.9%. Los resultados de índices odontológicos según grupo de edad muestran un incremento a medida que aumenta la edad. Teniendo en cuenta la variable sexose observa un promedio de COP-D/ceo-d de 6.30 para hombres y 8.36 para mujeres. En cuanto al nivel socioeconómico; los niveles 0, 1 y 2 del SISBEN presentan una clasificación muy alta y el nivel 3 alta según la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS). Conclusiones: La población afiliada al Régimen Subsidiado que asistió a la consulta odontológica en la ESE Hospital BelloSalud, presentó una prevalencia de caries alta; y una relación inversa entre el bajo nivel socioeconómico y resultados de alto y muy alto de los índices COP-D/ceo-d.

Introduction and Objective: Dental caries is the most prevalent oral disease in the adolescent population in Colombia and its effects increase with age. Caries resistance is determined not only by the immune system but also by non- specific antibacterial compounds, physicochemical properties of enamel, and carbohydrate intake among others. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of dental caries in patients of the subsidized system, treated during 2008 in a State Social Company (ESE) Bellosalud Hospital in Colombia. Material and Methods: A retrospective descriptive study was carried out using simple random sampling; 365 medical records were selected from two different locations. Results: The prevalence of dental caries during 2008 in the ESE Hospital Bellosalud was 84.9%. The results of dental rates by age group showed an increase with age. Differences between genders showed DMF/dmf-s averages of 6.30 for men and 8.36 for women. With regards to socioeconomic status, levels 0, 1 and 2 of the subsidized system had very high ranking while level 3 presented a high ranking, according to World Health Organization (WHO) criteria. Conclusions: The subsidized population that attended Dental Clinics at the ESE Bellosalud Hospital, presented a high dental caries prevalence, and an inverse relation between low socioeconomic status and high and very high results in the classification of DMF and dmf-s scores.