Evaluation of Ozone Therapy in Endodontic Treatment of Teeth with Necrotic Pulp and Apical Periodontitis: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

INTRODUCTION: The aim of this study was to compare the effect of different application techniques of ozone on the prevalence of postendodontic pain in patients undergoing single-visit root canal treatment. METHODS: hundred eight patients with necrotic pulp in single-rooted teeth and apical periodontitis participated in the trial. A standard single-visit endodontics protocol was followed with 5.25% sodium hypochlorite and rotary nickel-titanium files. After shaping and cleaning, patients were randomly allocated into the following groups: group 1 (n = 21), ozone treatment with no activation (NA); group 2 (n = 22), ozone treatment with manual dynamic activation (MDA); group 3, (n = 21), ozone treatment with passive ultrasonic activation (PUA); group 4 (n = 23), ozone treatment with sonic activation (SA); and group 5 (n = 21), no ozone treatment (the control group). Patient levels of discomfort were recorded at 6 different time intervals using the visual analog scale (VAS). Comparison of the mean difference between the groups and time intervals was performed using 2-way analysis of variance followed by a post hoc Bonferroni test. The level of significance was set at 5%. RESULTS: VAS scores were highest for the control > NA > MDA > SA > PUA groups. A statistically significant reduction in VAS scores was observed in the PUA and SA groups in comparison with the NA, control, and MDA groups. Timewise comparison showed a highly significant decline in VAS scores at all time intervals (P < .001). CONCLUSIONS: Ultrasonic and sonic activation of ozone resulted in less pain in patients undergoing single-visit endodontics compared with no ozone treatment.

Roadmap for metal nanoparticles in radiation therapy: current status, translational challenges, and future directions.

This roadmap outlines the potential roles of metallic nanoparticles (MNPs) in the field of radiation therapy. MNPs made up of a wide range of materials (from Titanium, Z = 22, to Bismuth, Z = 83) and a similarly wide spectrum of potential clinical applications, including diagnostic, therapeutic (radiation dose enhancers, hyperthermia inducers, drug delivery vehicles, vaccine adjuvants, photosensitizers, enhancers of immunotherapy) and theranostic (combining both diagnostic and therapeutic), are being fabricated and evaluated. This roadmap covers contributions from experts in these topics summarizing their view of the current status and challenges, as well as expected advancements in technology to address these challenges.

Metabonomics classifies pathways affected by bioactive compounds. Artificial neural network classification of NMR spectra of plant extracts.

The biochemical mode-of-action (MOA) for herbicides and other bioactive compounds can be rapidly and simultaneously classified by automated pattern recognition of the metabonome that is embodied in the 1H NMR spectrum of a crude plant extract. The ca. 300 herbicides that are used in agriculture today affect less than 30 different biochemical pathways. In this report, 19 of the most interesting MOAs were automatically classified. Corn (Zea mays) plants were treated with various herbicides such as imazethapyr, glyphosate, sethoxydim, and diuron, which represent various biochemical modes-of-action such as inhibition of specific enzymes (acetohydroxy acid synthase [AHAS], protoporphyrin IX oxidase [PROTOX], 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase [EPSPS], acetyl CoA carboxylase [ACC-ase], etc.), or protein complexes (photosystems I and II), or major biological process such as oxidative phosphorylation, auxin transport, microtubule growth, and mitosis. Crude isolates from the treated plants were subjected to 1H NMR spectroscopy, and the spectra were classified by artificial neural network analysis to discriminate the herbicide modes-of-action. We demonstrate the use and refinement of the method, and present cross-validated assignments for the metabolite NMR profiles of over 400 plant isolates. The MOA screen also recognizes when a new mode-of-action is present, which is considered extremely important for the herbicide discovery process, and can be used to study deviations in the metabolism of compounds from a chemical synthesis program. The combination of NMR metabolite profiling and neural network classification is expected to be similarly relevant to other metabonomic profiling applications, such as in drug discovery.