Evaluation of ß-endorphin concentration, mood, and pain intensity in men with idiopathic hip osteoarthritis treated with variable magnetic field.

Osteoarthritis is the most frequently diagnosed disease of the musculoskeletal system. Growing number of patients waiting for surgical treatment and the possible negative consequences resulting from long-term pharmacological therapy lead to the search for non-pharmacological methods aimed at alleviating pain and reducing doses of analgesics, among them physical therapy with use of magnetic fields.The study involved 30 men aged 49 to 76 (mean age, 61.7 years) treated for idiopathic osteoarthritis of the hip joint. The subjects were divided into 2 groups (15 patients each) and underwent a cycle of magnetostimulation and magnetoledtherapy procedures, respectively. During the exposure cycle concentrations of ß-endorphin were assessed 3 times and the mood was assessed 2 times. In addition, the assessment of pain intensity and the dose of analgesic drugs was performed before and after the end of therapy.Statistically significant increase in plasma ß-endorphins concentration was observed in both groups of patients (magnetostimulation-P < .01 vs magnetoledtherapy-P < .001). In the assessment of mood of respondents, no statistically significant differences were found. Significant reduction in intensity of perceived pain was observed in both groups of patients (P < .05). In the group of patients who underwent magnetoledtherapy cycle, the analgesic drug use was significantly lower by 13% (P < .05) as compared with initial values, which was not noted in group of patients who underwent magnetostimulation procedures.The use of magnetic field therapy in the treatment of men with idiopathic osteoarthritis of hip joints causes a statistically significant increase in the concentration of plasma ß-endorphins resulting in statistically significant analgesic effect in both magnetostimulation and magnetoledtherapy treated groups of patients, with accompanying decrease of need for analgetic drugs in magnetoledtherapy group, but without any significant changes regarding the patient's mood.

Oxidant and anti-oxidant systems of synovial fluid from patients with knee post-traumatic arthritis.

It has been suggested that patients with knee post-traumatic arthritis (PA), associated or not to haemarthrosis (HA), display altered oxidant and anti-oxidant systems in their synovial fluid. This study aimed to establish whether this is really the case. Synovial fluid samples were obtained by transdermal arthrocentesis from 69 patients with PA (36 of them had HA) and 22 control subjects. The activities of synovial fluid zinc-copper superoxide dismutase (ZnCuSOD) and manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) isoenzymes, catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPX), glutathione reductase (GR) and glutathione-S-transferase (GST) enzymes, and malondialdehyde (MDA) concentration and synovial fluid viscosity were measured in the study groups. Patients with PA had significantly increased activities of all antioxidant enzymes, except CAT, and MDA concentration than did the controls. However, synovial fluid viscosity was found to be decreased in the study group, mainly in the HA subgroup. Results suggest that excessive free radicals production may exist in synovial fluid of PA patients and may contribute to knee joint destruction.

[PDT photodynamic therapy in orthopedic inflammatory conditions?]. / Terapia fotodynamiczna w ortopedycznych stanach zapalnych?

The infections in orthopedic surgery and traumatology represents important medical problem. The results of treatment of motor-organs infections in high degree were improved by the introduction of antisepsis and asepsis in XIX century and the antibiotics' discovery in the beginning of XX century. However, widespread usage of antibiotics leaded to the rise of refractory tribes of bacteria on their activity, which caused higher percentage of fails in the therapy. Also the rapid civilization development, which flown on arising of a new invasive methods of operative trauma protection and stabilizations of fractures in motor-organs area increased the number of infectious complications during treatment. These facts gave a reason to look for a more effective therapeutic methods. It seems that photodynamic therapy gives us the new possibilities of infectious treatment, which avails oneself activity of therapeutic light laser with proper wave length on the human tissue with photosensitizer included. Indeed there are known until now splendid results of PDT in neoplasma treatment, however it seems, based on experimental investigations and publications in medical literature, that this method can be a chance of effectual and non-invasive treatment of the soft tissues and bones inflammations.