Osteoperiosteal free fibula flap as an effective preprosthetic reconstructive option in severe jaw atrophy and oncological resection.

The gold standard in modern surgical treatment of patients with severe maxillo-mandibular atrophy must include the aim to achieve restoration of function and aesthetics with immediate reconstruction of the oro-mandibular defects. The medical records of 14 patients who were treated in a 5-year period (2010-2014) at our department with severe maxillary and mandibular atrophy, and reconstructed by vascularised free fibula flap were reviewed. Among the former, a total of 14 patients underwent maxillary and mandibular reconstruction using the osteoperiosteal fibula free flap. No major complications were reported. The main advantage of this technique is that it allows the formation of keratinised gengiva, which provides the best implantological options. The only disadvantage of the technique is that the wounds have to heal for second intention, and for this reason patients have to undergo strict follow-up for the first months after the operation. The aim of this article is to evaluate the efficiency of the technique in bone reconstruction after jaw resection or severe atrophy.

Trismus-pseudocamptodactyly syndrome: a 20 year follow-up.

BACKGROUND: Trismus-Pseudocamptodactyly Syndrome (TPS) is a rare autosomal syndrome characterised by the inability to open the mouth fully, pseudocamptodactyly, short stature and foot deformities. The maxillofacial feature entails hyperplasia of the coronoid processes which mechanically interfere with the zygomatic processes during mouth opening. CASE REPORT: A 22-year- old girl affected by a severe form of TPS was followed from the age of three years. Bone reossification was observed after two coronoidotomies of both hyperplasic coronoid processes. After the decision to perform a coronoidectomy, the four-year follow-up showed a favourable outcome. Meanwhile the patient developed an anterior open bite which was treated with a fourth orthognathic surgery. The follow-up underscores how the correction of malformation leads to the generation of EMG activity of the masticatory muscles after many years of passiveness.

Large deviations of cascade processes on graphs.

Simple models of irreversible dynamical processes such as bootstrap percolation have been successfully applied to describe cascade processes in a large variety of different contexts. However, the problem of analyzing nontypical trajectories, which can be crucial for the understanding of out-of-equilibrium phenomena, is still considered to be intractable in most cases. Here we introduce an efficient method to find and analyze optimized trajectories of cascade processes. We show that for a wide class of irreversible dynamical rules, this problem can be solved efficiently on large-scale systems.

Entropy landscape and non-Gibbs solutions in constraint satisfaction problems.

We study the entropy landscape of solutions for the bicoloring problem in random graphs, a representative difficult constraint satisfaction problem. Our goal is to classify which types of clusters of solutions are addressed by different algorithms. In the first part of the study we use the cavity method to obtain the number of clusters with a given internal entropy and determine the phase diagram of the problem--e.g., dynamical, rigidity, and satisfiability-unsatisfiability (SAT-UNSAT) transitions. In the second part of the paper we analyze different algorithms and locate their behavior in the entropy landscape of the problem. For instance, we show that a smoothed version of a decimation strategy based on belief propagation is able to find solutions belonging to subdominant clusters even beyond the so-called rigidity transition where the thermodynamically relevant clusters become frozen. These nonequilibrium solutions belong to the most probable unfrozen clusters.

The macrophagic activity of patients affected by pneumonia or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

The function of alveolar macrophages (AMS) in patients with pneumonia (n = 7) (Group A) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (n = 11) (Group B) was investigated by evaluating the rate of phagocytosis and of the intracellular killing. A control group of healthy subjects (n = 8) was also included. Phagocytosis frequency (PHF), phagocytosis index (PHI) and intracellular killing towards Candida albicans were then evaluated. PHF and PHI were found to be significantly (p < 0.05) lower in Group B patients than in the control group, while intracellular killing showed a behaviour similar to controls. PHF and PHI values observed in the patients of Group A and in the control group did not show any significant difference; the intracellular killing rate proved on the contrary to be significantly (p < 0.05) lower than that observed in the controls.

Effect of thyroid hormones and their analogues on the mitochondrial calcium transport activity.

In this paper the authors studied the effects of thyroid hormones and their structural analogues on the mitochondrial calcium transport activities. The thyroid hormones, 3,5,3' L-triiodothyronine (LT3) and 3,5,3'5' L-tetraiodothyronine (LT4) at physiological intracellular concentrations between 7.2 and 9 nM, decouple total Ca++ transport, as well as inhibit the passive transport of Ca++, either due to oxidation of pyruvate, malate or succinate or after inhibition with rotenone. The optical isomers 3,5,3' D-triiodothyronine (DT3) and 3,5,3',5' D-tetraiodothyronine (DT4) are less effective at all the used concentrations. Furthermore the structural analogues 3,3',5' L-triiodothyronine (LrT3), 3,5-dicloro, 3',5' L-diiodothyronine (LDiClT2) and 3,5 L-diiodothyronine (LT2) furnished even less effects on the same activities. The effect of the thyroid hormones and of their structural analogues has revealed that the mitochondrial calcium transport may be influenced both by a stereospecific interaction between hormones and protein ligands and by a lipophilic chaotropic action on the mitochondrial membranes lipids. In this context it is interesting to consider that both thyroid hormones and Ca++ transport activity are interacting with the energetic metabolism by means of phosphorylation and substrate oxidation mechanism.

Immobilization of proteins on oxidized crosslinked Sepharose preparations by reductive amination.

Mild periodate oxidation of certain commercially available crosslinked agarose beads (Sepharose CL-4B and CL-6B) results in the generation of aldehydo groups which were useful for immobilization of amino compounds by reductive amination using pyridine borane. Consumption of periodate ion and production of formaldehyde were only observed with crosslinked Sepharose preparations and were correlated with a binding capacity much greater than that of uncross-linked gels when subjected to the reductive amination reaction. Up to 50 mg (approximately 0.73 mumol) of bovine serum albumin and 30 mumol of glycylglycine were coupled per gram of moist oxidized Sepharose CL-6B. The immobilization reaction was shown to proceed at neutral pH requiring about 12 h for completion and to be relatively insensitive to temperature and pyridine borane concentration. The oxidized gel was shown to be stable for at least 2 months upon storage in 0.1 M acetic acid. This method has proven to be useful for the preparation of a variety of affinity matrices and immobilized enzymes.

Synthesis and hypolipidemic activity of some new esters of glycerol and 2-O-methyl-glycerol with nicotinic and 5-fluoro-nicotinic acids.

A series of new esters of glycerol and 2-O-methyl-glycerol with nicotinic and 5-fluoro-nicotinic acids were synthesized and their hypolipidemic activities were comparatively tested. The two most interesting compounds, 5 and 12, show a higher activity than both nicotinic and 5-fluoro-nicotinic acids in the following experimental models: Triton and olive oil hyperdyslipemia and tests on old rats.

Synthesis and biological properties of 1-methyl-2-[(4-aminophenyl)-sulfonyl-]amino-5-nitro imidazole.

The synthesis of 1-methyl-2-[(4-aminophenyl)sulfonyl] amino-5-nitroimidazole 5 is described. The new sulfonamide 5 shows a good activity against aerobic and anaerobic Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. Compound 5 is well absorbed in rats after oral administration but the plasma levels are inferior to those of sulfadiazine and sulfamethoxazole.

New isosorbide 5-mononitrate derivative with hypotensive activity.

Synthesis and pharmacological properties of the 5-fluoro-nicotinic ester with isosorbide-5-mononitrate 3 are reported. The new compound shows an in vitro activity on rabbit aortic helical strips five times higher than isosorbide-5-mononitrate. The hypotensive activity in guinea-pigs of 3 is markedly superior to that of 5-ISMN. In the rat 3 shows a bioavailability and an acute toxicity inferior to those of 5-ISMN after oral administration.

Synthesis, antiinflammatory and antiarthritic properties of a new tiopronine gold derivative.

The synthesis of triethylphosphine gold complex with the alpha-mercaptopropionylglycine ethyl ester (compound 3) is reported. The new compound shows an antiinflammatory and antiarthritic activity superior to auranofin.

Synthesis, acute toxicity and chemotherapeutic anti-cancer activities of a new tripeptidic mustard.

A new antitumor agent having the chemical composition of 3-(p-fluorophenyl)-Lalanyl-3-[m-bis-(2-chloroethyl)aminophenyl]-L- alanyl-L-methionine ethyl ester hydrochloride (PTT 119) was synthetized. It fundamental toxicological data in mice and rats were assessed; its antitumor activity was investigated by establishing in mice, inoculated with L 1210 leukemia or in AKR mice with spontaneous leukemia of viral origin, a significant increase in Mean Survival Time as well as a percent increase of Increased Life Span and of the number of survivors.