Nasal mucosa healing after endoscopic sinus surgery in chronic rhinosinusitis of elderly patients: role of topic alpha-tocopherol acetate.

BACKGROUND: Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) in European country ranges in elderly patients from 4.5 to 12% of population and has a significant effect on quality of life. In these patients, rhinosinusitis is linked to immune functions changes with age and to mucosal paraphysiological alterations such as crusting formations with atrophic epithelium, variations of nasal airflow and modifications of the mucociliary clearance. Failure of medical treatments leads to surgery in patients with persistent symptoms and radiographic signs of CRS. The choice of appropriate post-surgical topic treatments is important for healing time and for preventing mucosal complications such as synechiae, crusting formation and atrophy with secondary bacterial and fungal infections. AIMS: Defining the effects of topic alpha-tocopherol acetate administration on nasal mucosa healing after endoscopic sinus surgery in CRS of elderly patients. METHODS: In this study were included 32 patients, mean age 68.6, who underwent FESS because affected by CRS not responsive to medical treatments. After surgical treatment, we distinguish two groups basing on local nasal therapy. RESULTS: We investigated, in the postoperative time, the role of alpha-tocopherol acetate compared to gomenol oil. Follow-up was performed at 7-15 days and 1-3 months after surgery. We evaluated mucosal restoration using Rhinoscopy Sum Score and quality of life using Nasal Six Items Symptom Questionnaire. We observed a faster healing time and less recurrence of complications in patients who underwent topic treatment with alpha-tocopherol acetate. DISCUSSION: In our research, we observed that alpha-tocopherol acetate has no contraindications and side effects. CONCLUSIONS: Our study showed the effectiveness of alpha-tocopherol acetate topic treatment in elderly patients affected by CRS after FESS, in improving and speeding up the process of restoring the sinonasal mucosa, compared to another topic medication.

Hierarchical Grid-based Multi-People Tracking-by-Detection With Global Optimization.

We present a hierarchical grid-based, globally optimal tracking-by-detection approach to track an unknown number of targets in complex and dense scenarios, particularly addressing the challenges of complex interaction and mutual occlusion. Frame-by-frame detection is performed by hierarchical likelihood grids, matching shape templates through a fast oriented distance transform. To allow recovery from misdetections, common heuristics such as nonmaxima suppression within observations is eschewed. Within a discretized state-space, the data association problem is formulated as a grid-based network flow model, resulting in a convex problem casted into an integer linear programming form, giving a global optimal solution. In addition, we show how a behavior cue (body orientation) can be integrated into our association affinity model, providing valuable hints for resolving ambiguities between crossing trajectories. Unlike traditional motion-based approaches, we estimate body orientation by a hybrid methodology, which combines the merits of motion-based and 3D appearance-based orientation estimation, thus being capable of dealing also with still-standing or slowly moving targets. The performance of our method is demonstrated through experiments on a large variety of benchmark video sequences, including both indoor and outdoor scenarios.

Topical alpha-tocopherol acetate in the bulk phase: eight years of experience in skin treatment.

Clinical practice in dermatology indicates that alpha-tocopherol acetate is beneficial in xerosis, hyperkeratosis, asteatotic eczema, atopic dermatitis, superficial burns, cutaneous ulcers, onychoschizia and, in general, skin diseases in which an inflammatory process is activated. The positive effect results from the combination of biological activity, the absence of adverse reactions, and the physical effect of the alpha-tocopherol acetate oil. The viscosity of this oil in bulk phase accounts for a remarkable moisturizing effect and minimization of transepidermal water loss. This effect combines well with the antioxidant capacity of alpha-tocopherol released from the ester, and the recently emerging effect on reprogramming of gene expression.