Essential oil of Piper hispidum (Piperaceae) has efficacy against monogeneans, and effects on hematology and gill histology of Colossoma macropomum.

This study investigated for the first time the effectiveness of therapeutic baths with essential oil (EO) of Piper hispidum against monogeneans Anacanthorus spathulatus, Notozothecium janauachensis, Mymarothecium boegeri and Linguadactyloides brinkmanni from the gills of Colossoma macropomum, as well as the hematological and histological effects on this fish. In therapeutic baths, 100 mg/L of P. hispidum essential oil and two control groups (water from the culture tank and water from the culture tank with 70% alcohol) were exposed for 1 h/day, with intervals of 48 hours for 3 days, and three replicates each were used. Therapeutic baths with 100 mg/L of P. hispidum essential oil had an efficacy of 78.6% against monogeneans. The toxicity of this essential oil was low, since there were a few physiological and histopathological changes that did not compromise the functioning of the gills of the fish. Therefore, 100 mg/L of P. hispidum essential oil was effective for controlling monogeneans in C. macropomum, when short therapeutic baths were used without compromising the health of the exposed fish.

Decompressive Craniectomy in Traumatic Brain Injury: An Institutional Experience of 131 Cases in Two Years.

Decompressive craniectomy (DC) effectively reduces intracranial pressure (ICP), but is not considered to be a first-line procedure. We retrospectively analyzed sociodemographic, clinical, and surgical characteristics associated with the prognosis of patients who underwent DC to treat traumatic intracranial hypertension (ICH) at the Restauração Hospital (HR) in Recife, Brazil between 2015 and 2016, and compared the clinical features with surgical timing and functional outcome at discharge. The data were collected from 131 medical records in the hospital database. A significant majority of the patients were young adults (age 18-39 years old; 75/131; 57.3%) and male (118/131; 90.1%). Road traffic accidents, particularly those involving motorcycles (57/131; 44.5%), were the main cause of the traumatic event. At initial evaluation, 63 patients (48.8%) were classified with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). Pupil examination showed no abnormalities for 91 patients (71.1%), and acute subdural hematoma was the most frequently observed lesion (83/212; 40%). Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS) score was used to categorize surgical results and 51 patients (38.9%) had an unfavorable outcome. Only the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score on admission (score of 3-8) was more likely to be associated with unfavorable outcome (p-value = 0.009), indicating that this variable may be a determinant of mortality and prognostic of poor outcome. Patients who underwent an operation sooner after injury, despite having a worse condition on admission, presented with clinical results that were similar to those of patients who underwent surgery 12 h after hospital admission. These results emphasize the importance of early DC for management of severe TBI. This study shows that DC is a common procedure used to manage TBI patients at HR.