Conservative treatment may be still considered a viable therapeutic option for patients with spontaneous non-specific pyogenic spondylodiscitis. A retrospective audit study of 47 patients.

Background: Spontaneous non-specific pyogenic spondylodiscitis (SNPS) is a rare medical condition, whose optimal treatment remains controversial. We evaluated the multidisciplinary protocol implemented at our department for the conservative treatment of patients with SNPS. Methods: Patients with lumbar or thoracic SNPS, whose treatment was initiated conservatively and had at least six months of follow-up, were enrolled in this retrospective audit study. Patients with specific, postoperative, or iatrogenic spondylodiscitis or necessitating immediate operative treatment were excluded. The location of the infection, initial symptoms, co-morbidities, pathogens, duration of antibiotic treatment, hospitalization and follow-up, and outcome were retrieved. The visual analogue scale (VAS) score was used to register pain improvement after treatment. Results: Between January 2011 and December 2021, forty-seven patients (male: 26, mean age: 68.5 years) with SNPS (lumbar: 29, thoracic: 18) were hospitalized. The main co-morbidity was diabetes mellitus (23 patients). Pain was the predominant (46 patients), and fever was the second most common (19 patients) symptom. The most frequent causative microorganism was staphylococcus aureus (29 patients); no pathogen was identified in ten patients. The mean hospitalization duration for patients completing their conservative treatment (43/47) was 27 (range: 22-41) days. They received antibiotics for a mean period of 23 days intravenously (range: 21-29), 23.8 days per os (range: 21-35), and 46.8 days in total (range: 42-63). Conservative treatment was discontinued in two females. Two male patients died due to septic shock. The mean follow-up was 11.5 months (range: 6-15). During follow-up, no one developed any neurologic deficit and/or recurrence. There was a significant improvement in the mean VAS, from 8.3 ± 0.8 pre-treatment to 1.6 ± 0.5 at the latest follow-up (p <0.001). Conclusions: Although treatment is gradually shifting towards surgical intervention, conservative therapeutic management of SNPS patients with antibiotic administration, bed rest, and careful mobilization remains a viable and efficacious option. HIPPOKRATIA 2023, 27 (2):106-111.

A case series of a luteolin formulation (NeuroProtek®) in children with autism spectrum disorders.

There has been an impressive, little understood increase in cases of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The lack of any distinctive pathogenetic mechanism has hampered the development of any effective treatments. Increasing evidence indicates oxidative stress, brain inflammation, gastrointestinal (GI) dysfunction and allergic symptoms may be present in ASD patients. The flavone luteolin has anti-oxidant, anti-flammatory, anti-allergy and neuroprotective properties. Given these findings, a dietary supplement was developed with a unique mixture of luteolin with the related flavonoids quercetin and rutin in a liposomal formulation of olive kernel oil (OKO), which increases their absorption. Results are presented for children with ASD (n=37, 4-14 years old) who had not obtained any benefit from multiple other regimens and who used this formulation for at least 4 months. GI and allergy symptoms improved in about 75 percent of children, eye contact and attention in 50 percent, social interaction in 25 percent and resumption of speech in about 10 percent. There were no adverse effects. Even though these results represent an uncontrolled open case series, they are encouraging because they suggest good tolerability and potential effectiveness.

The effect of osteoarthritis on the regional anatomical variation of subchondral trabecular bone in the femoral head.

BACKGROUND: The subchondral trabecular bone is located deep inside the articular cartilage, with the subcapital region carrying up to 70% of the diurnal loads occurring in the hip joint. This leads to severe regional anatomical variations of subchondral trabecular bone in the femoral head and the purpose of this study was to examine whether osteoarthritis affects these topographic characteristics. METHODS: 60 femoral heads were harvested during hip replacement and studied by osteopenetration at 8 pre-defined angles, at a penetration rate of 1mm/s. Twenty-eight of the donors underwent surgery due to osteoarthritis, whereas the remaining were trauma patients with hip fractures. To correlate these measurements to non-invasive data, all specimens were scanned by micro Computed Tomography (µCT) prior to experimentation. A cross-sectional area, perpendicular to the needle penetration pathway, was analyzed and the deviations compared to the recorded osteopenetration energy. FINDINGS: The experiments revealed significant topographical deviations in the trabeculae. These were more pronounced in the osteoarthritic samples which also required overall higher osteopenetration energy. A notable dependency of the directional bone strength to its cross-sectional characteristics was observed. Although the effect of "gender" on osteopenetration energy was proven to be significant, gender was not considered an independent variable in a regression model correlating osteopenetration energy to 2D trabecular bone density as this did not improve the value of the adjusted R(2). INTERPRETATION: The investigation provided refined insight into femoral head load-bearing capacity of patients suffering from osteoarthritis, as a comparison of osteoarthritic to healthy samples illustrated that subchondral trabecular bone in the femoral head region is subjected to increased remodeling and demineralization, reflected in higher osteopenetration values.