Increased expression of ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase L1 in astrocytomas of ascending grades.

BACKGROUND: The ubiquitin-proteasome pathway controls the monitoring and degradation of important proteins and is involved in several cellular processes, such as development, differentiation, and transcriptional regulation. Recent evidence has shown that ubiquitin carboxy-terminal hydrolase-L1 (UCH-L1), a member of the deubiquitinating enzyme family that removes ubiquitin from protein substrates, is overexpressed in many types of cancer. AIM: This study thus examined the expression of UCH-L1 in human astrocytoma tissues. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded astrocytoma samples were obtained from 40 patients, after which histopathological examination, typing, and grading were performed. The study group included 10 histologically normal brain tissues, which served as the control group, and 10 WHO grade II, 10 WHO grade III, and 10 WHO grade IV (glioblastoma) samples. Normal brain tissue samples were obtained from the histologically normal, non-tumoral portion of the pathology specimens. UCH-L1 expression was evaluated using quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and immunohistochemistry. RESULTS: Astrocytoma tissues exhibited higher UCH-L1 expression compared to the control group. UCH-L1 overexpression increased significantly together with the increase in astrocytoma grades (from II to IV). CONCLUSION: UCH-L1 could be a good diagnostic and therapeutic marker for determining astrocytoma development and progression.

Coccygectomy for coccygodynia: A single-center experience.

Spine fractures are most commonly observed among older people due to weak bones and irregular postures. These fractures of 10 lead to coccygodynia. Women are 5 times more prone to developing coccygodynia as compared to men. Initially, different painkillers, physiotherapy, and other non-surgical treatments are recommended to reduce the pain. However, in case of the failure of these treatments, a surgical procedure (named coccygectomy) is considered to remove the tailbone to achieve effective outcomes. The main aim of this study is to determine the effectiveness of coccygectomy in treating coccygodynia (after the failure of different non-surgical treatments) in the context of patients who were treated at Konya City Hospital neurosurgery department, Turkey. In this study, a total of 14 cases of coccygodynia treated with coccygectomy at Konya City Hospital were selected from the period of August 2020 and January 2022. These patients were given different treatments for 6 to 7 months before the operation. Therefore, due to the lack of positive outcomes, a coccygectomy was performed by a senior surgeon. Visual analogue scale was used to assess the pain of the patients after the surgery. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences was used for statistical analysis. The level of significance was set at P < .05. The results of this study showed that more women suffered from coccygodynia as compared to men. Most of the patients had Type I (35.7%) and Type IV (35.7%) coccyx. The visual analogue scale was reduced after the surgery (P < .0011), showing positive outcomes. Ten (71.4%) cases showed excellent outcomes, whereas only one (7.1%) case showed poor outcomes after the surgery, and wound infections were observed in two (14.2%) cases post-operatively. The results obtained from this study concluded that in case of failure of conservative non-surgical treatments for coccygodynia, coccygectomy has emerged as an effective surgical method which is recommended by various surgeons to reduce the pain by removing the tailbone. Additionally, only a few complications such as infection as a relevant concern after this type of surgery were observed, and most of the patients were satisfied with the outcomes and also recommended it to others.

Evaluation of accuracy, reliability, quality, and readability of online patient information materials on coccyx injury.

The aim of this research is to evaluate the websites containing "coccydynia, coccyx trauma or fracture" in terms of readability, reliability, accuracy, and quality. Searches for "coccydynia, coccyx trauma, coccyx fracture" were carried out in the 3 most used search engines in the USA: Google, Yahoo, and Bing in February 2022. A total of 141 websites were rated by 2 different neurosurgeons for the "Global Quality Score" and "Alexa Popularity Rank." 97.2% of the sites examined include the definition of the disease, 66% include the importance of the disease, 92.9% include the symptoms of the disease, 88.7% include the treatment of the disease, 78% include the signs of the disease, 77.3% include the mechanism of the disease It has been determined that the websites examined within the scope of the research have high global quality score (GQS) and APR and are enriched with images to a large extent.

Role of a Qualified Physician and Health Behavior in Effective Treatment of Cervical Spondylotic Myelopathy.

Objectives: This research investigated the impact of having a qualified physician on improving disease awareness and effective treatment for cervical spondylotic myelopathy. Previous studies have observed that patients with cervical spondylotic myelopathy are less satisfied with their treatment and medical facilities. This study hence aimed to investigate the role of a qualified physician and the moderating influence of health behavior between disease awareness and effective treatment for cervical spondylotic myelopathy. Methods: The primary data was collected from 144 cervical spondylotic myelopathy patients admitted in Meram Medical Faculty Hospital. A questionnaire on 5-point Likert scale was developed, whose items were checked for validity and reliability. The study adopted a cross- sectional approach, by conducting a normality test, correlation measurement of all variables like disease awareness, qualified physician and health behavior, and a regression analysis to explore the impact of independent variables on the dependent variable, and to test the hypotheses of the study. Results: The results of this research revealed that patients of cervical spondylotic myelopathy would get effective treatment when their health behavior is positive and when they have an awareness of the critical health situation. Conclusion: This research contributed a framework significantly to the research gap. It demonstrated the extraordinary practical and theoretical implications related to cervical spondylotic myelopathy. Future directions are also recommended by highlighting the limitations of this research, in order to continue to contribute to the effective treatment of cervical spondylotic myelopathy patients.

Investigating Women's Health Behavior and Impact of Health Exercise on Low Back Pain Caused by Breast Size.

Objectives: The breast size causes back pain in women of every age. Back pain is critical for women with increasing age as they gradually lose energy to carry large breasts. Medical advancement in surgery has introduced treatment for large breast sizes. Natural remedies are difficult to take for women to reduce their breast size. This objective of this cross-sectional research was to investigate the impact of health exercise on low back pain in women caused by increased breast size with moderating influence of health literacy and access to doctors. Methods: The primary data was randomly collected from women in gyms and parks focusing on factors that can account for improving the health of women by reducing their back pain. Results: Furthermore, the study contributes a significant model in the body of knowledge related to the health behavior of women concerning their low back pain. Conclusion: Following significant findings, the study has deliberated the theoretical implication that enriched the literature and practical implications to improve the health behavior of women and reduce the chances of low back pain caused by breast size. Finally, this research highlighted some future directions based on research limitations.

Neuroprotective Effects of Tocilizumab on Experimentally-Induced Spinal Cord Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury.

OBJECTIVES: We aimed to evaluate neuroprotective effects of tocilizumab on spinal cord ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury. Our study design was an experimental rabbit spinal cord I/R injury model, and the setting was at the Animal Research Laboratory, Necmettin Erbakan University, Meram School of Medicine, Konya, Turkey. METHODS: Twenty-four adult New Zealand rabbits were randomly divided into 3 groups: Group 1, control group (n = 8); Group 2, I/R group, and Group 3 (n = 8) I/R injury + tocilizumab (4 mg/kg, ip) treatment group. Spinal cord I/R injury repair was performed by infrarenal aortic cross clamping. On neurologic evaluation, spinal cord tissue plasma tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα), total antioxidant status (TAS), total oxidant status (TOS), thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), interleukin 6 (IL-6), interleukin 10 (IL-10) levels were analyzed. Spinal cord neuronal damage score and apoptotic cell count were also investigated. RESULTS: I/R injury significantly increases the plasma and spinal cord tissue TNFα, TOS, TBARS, and IL-6 levels and decreases the plasma and spinal cord tissue TAS and IL-10 levels. Tocilizumab treatment significantly reduces the plasma and spinal cord tissue TNFα, TOS, TBARS, IL-6 levels and increases plasma and tissue TAS and IL-10 levels. I/R injury significantly increases spinal cord neuronal damage score and apoptotic cell count. Tocilizumab treatment significantly reduces spinal cord neuronal damage score and apoptotic cell count. Neurologic examination scores at 24, 48, and 72 hours were significantly better in the treatment group when compared with the I/R group. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows significant neuroprotective effects of tocilizumab on rabbit spinal cord I/R injury.