Adalimumab (Humira®) Induced Recurrent Peritonsillar Abscess in A Patient Received Three Different Anti-TNF Therapies: A Case Report.

Anti-tumor necrosis factor agents are widely used in treating ankylosing spondylitis, but they increase the risk of infection by suppressing the immune response. Therefore, physicians should be careful about recurrent infections in patients under anti-tumor necrosis factor agents.

A cross-sectional study on the personality traits of episodic and chronic migraine patients.

BACKGROUND: Migraine, is a common neurological disorder that may be associated with certain personality traits. This study aims to identify and compare the personality traits accompanying the clinical and sociodemographic profiles in migraine groups. METHODS: The study included a cohort of chronic, episodic migraine (CM - EM) and healthy controls (HC). Migraine was diagnosed according to the International Classification of Headache Disorders-3ß criteria. Age, gender, migraine-related disease duration, number of days with a headache each month, and headache intensity of the patients were recorded. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) was used to determine personality traits. RESULTS: The study groups were similar in terms of sociodemographic characteristics (70 CM, 70 EM, and 70 HC). The visual analog scale (VAS) score was significantly higher in CM (p < 0.05). No statistically significant difference was found between the groups concerning symptoms of migraine such as osmophobia, photophobia, phonophobia, and nausea (p > 0.05). When the personality traits were examined, the mean scores of the MMPI test results of migraine patients were found to be higher than healthy controls in line personality disorders (p < 0.05 for all personality traits). In CM patients, the 'hysteria' score was found to be higher in subgroup evaluation (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: EM and CM patients had more evidence of personality disorders than healthy controls. CM patients had higher hysteria scores than EM patients. In addition to pain treatment, determining personality traits and providing appropriate management with a multidisciplinary approach can benefit both in terms of treatment, cost, and time.

The diagnostic and prognostic value of serum neurogranin in acute ischemic stroke.

OBJECTIVES: Stroke is a frequently encountered life-threatening medical condition in emergency departments (EDs). Despite all worldwide efforts, a reliable circulating biomarker has not been identified yet. This study investigates the diagnostic and prognostic value of neurogranin (Ng) in acute ischemic stroke (AIS). METHODS: This prospective case-control study was conducted on ED patients with AIS and healthy volunteers. We collected the basic demographics, measured serum Ng levels of the patients vs. controls, and followed up the patient group for 6-month by phone or clinical notes to assess the functional outcomes. RESULTS: Data analysis was completed with 142 subjects (86 patients vs. 55 controls). The groups did not differ in terms of age and gender. The median serum Ng level of the patient group was significantly higher compared to the control group [160.00 (75.93) vs. 121.26 (90.35) ng/mL and p Ë‚ 0.001, respectively]. Serum Ng level of 25 patients admitted to the ED within the first 6 hours from the onset of AIS was 177.93 (24.03) ng/mL, while serum Ng level of 61 patients admitted to the ED within 6-24 hours was 131.84 (76.44) ng/mL. AUROC results were 0.717 vs. 0.868 vs. 0.874 for stroke patients admitted during the first 24 hours, 6 hours, and 4.5 hours after the onset, respectively. Lesion volume, NIHSS, and modified Rankin Scale scores (mRS) at admission showed no significant correlation with Ng levels as well as 6-month mortality and 6-month mRS. CONCLUSIONS: Timely AIS diagnosis is still a challenge for emergency departments due to the dependency on imaging. Serum Ng can be a promising diagnostic biomarker for AIS patients admitted in the first 24 hours. Even it outperformed in the first 4.5 and 6-hour time windows. However, it did not show a significant prognostic value.

Can calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) and pentraxin-3 (PTX-3) be useful in diagnosing acute migraine attack?

PURPOSE: Even if migraine is not fatal, it is a common and challenging disease with adverse effects on individuals' lives. The lack of objective diagnostic tools causes delays in diagnosis and treatment initiation. The primary aim of this study is to reveal the diagnostic value of Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide (CGRP) and Pentraxin-3 (PTX-3) in acute migraine. To this aim, we compared the serum CGRP and PTX-3 levels of migraine patients with acute attacks to those in healthy individuals. MATERIAL AND METHOD: A total of 135 individuals (85 patients with migraine attacks with or without aura and 50 healthy controls) participated in the study. Serum CGRP and PTX-3 levels were measured with ELISA analysis. A p value less than 0.05 was considered significant. RESULTS: Serum CGRP [146.70 (21.52-413.67) vs. 65.90 (3.80-256.60) pg/mL] and PTX-3 levels [12.71 (0.62-33.97) vs. 1.01 (0.06-9.48) ng/mL] were higher in patients with migraine attack than the control group (p < 0.01 and p < 0.01, respectively). ROC analysis showed that the cutoff value for serum CGRP was 121.39 pg/mL (AUC: 0.751, Sen:%61, Spe:%64) whereas the cutoff value for PTX-3 was 4,06 ng/mL (AUC:0.876, Sen:%73, Spe:%76). Serum CGRP levels were positively correlated with pain intensity. Serum CGRP and PTX-3 levels did not differ across gender groups and presence of aura in subgroup analysis. CONCLUSION: Patients with acute migraine attacks have higher serum CGRP and PTX-3 levels than controls. Both biomarkers show high potential for the diagnosis of a migraine attack.

Ability of Bedside Ultrasonography to Detect Pediatric Nasal Bone Fractures.

OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS: The aims of this study were to evaluate the diagnostic test features of bedside ultrasonography in pediatric patients with nasal trauma and to investigate whether it is a preferable alternative method to conventional radiography (CR). STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional prospective study. METHODS: This prospective study was conducted from March 1, 2019, through November 1, 2019. Thirty-one patients under the age of 18 years who had nasal trauma were consecutively included. CR and ultrasonographic imaging tests were investigated in patients with clinical indications for nasal bone fracture. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of ultrasonography and CR were calculated with respect to detecting nasal fractures according to the gold standard method. RESULTS: Participants were between 3 and 16 years old and the median age was 8 (5-13) years. Nasal bone fracture was clinically detected in 18 patients. While 13 of these fractures were detected with ultrasonography, only 11 were also detected with CR. The sensitivity and specificity of ultrasonography and CR in detecting nasal fractures were 72.2% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 46.5-90.3) and 76.9% (95% CI: 46.2-95.0) for ultrasonography and 61.1% (95% CI: 35.8-82.7) and 69.2% (95% CI: 38.6-90.9) for CR. CONCLUSIONS: According to the results of this study, ultrasonography may be used with confidence as a first imaging method in the investigation of nasal fractures, particularly with consideration for avoiding the effects of radiation as much as possible. Our findings point to the next step of conducting trials with a greater number of patients in order to define the diagnostic test features of ultrasonography in pediatric patients. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 2 Laryngoscope, 131:1398-1403, 2021.

Identification of multidimensional Boolean patterns in microbial communities.

BACKGROUND: Identification of complex multidimensional interaction patterns within microbial communities is the key to understand, modulate, and design beneficial microbiomes. Every community has members that fulfill an essential function affecting multiple other community members through secondary metabolism. Since microbial community members are often simultaneously involved in multiple relations, not all interaction patterns for such microorganisms are expected to exhibit a visually uninterrupted pattern. As a result, such relations cannot be detected using traditional correlation, mutual information, principal coordinate analysis, or covariation-based network inference approaches. RESULTS: We present a novel pattern-specific method to quantify the strength and estimate the statistical significance of two-dimensional co-presence, co-exclusion, and one-way relation patterns between abundance profiles of two organisms as well as extend this approach to allow search and visualize three-, four-, and higher dimensional patterns. The proposed approach has been tested using 2380 microbiome samples from the Human Microbiome Project resulting in body site-specific networks of statistically significant 2D patterns as well as revealed the presence of 3D patterns in the Human Microbiome Project data. CONCLUSIONS: The presented study suggested that search for Boolean patterns in the microbial abundance data needs to be pattern specific. The reported presence of multidimensional patterns (which cannot be reduced to a combination of two-dimensional patterns) suggests that multidimensional (multi-organism) relations may play important roles in the organization of microbial communities, and their detection (and appropriate visualization) may lead to a deeper understanding of the organization and dynamics of microbial communities. Video Abstract.

Serum Copeptin Levels Predict the Return of Spontaneous Circulation and the Short-Term Prognosis of Patients with Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest: A Randomized Control Study.

INTRODUCTION: Early and accurate prediction of survival to hospital discharge following resuscitation after cardiac arrest (CA) is a major challenge. Biomarkers can be used for early and accurate prediction of survival and prognosis following resuscitation after CA, but none of those identified so far are sufficient by themselves. HYPOTHESIS/PROBLEM: The goal of this study was to investigate the predictive power of the serum copeptin level for determining the return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) and prognosis of patients with non-traumatic out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) who underwent cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). METHODS: A total of 76 consecutive consenting adult patients who were diagnosed as non-traumatic OHCA and 63 age- and sex-matched healthy controls were enrolled. The patients were divided into two groups based on whether or not they had ROSC. The ROSC group was divided into two sub-groups according to whether death occurred within 24 hours or after 24 hours following ROSC. Serum copeptin, high-sensitivity cardiac troponin (hs-cTnI), creatine kinase-muscle/brain (CK-MB), glucose, and blood gas values were compared between the groups. RESULTS: Serum copeptin levels were significantly higher in the patient group than control group (P <.001). Receiving operator characteristic analysis revealed a cut-off copeptin level of 27.29pmol/L, with 98.7% sensitivity and 100.0% specificity, for distinguishing patients from controls. Serum copeptin levels were significantly lower in the ROSC group than non-ROSC group (P = .018). Additionally, the mean serum hs-cTnI level was significantly higher in the ROSC group than non-ROSC group (P = .032). However, there were no significant differences in the mean serum glucose level and CK-MB levels or arterial blood gas levels between the ROSC and non-ROSC groups (all P >.05).Ten (38.5%) of the patients died within the first 24 hours after ROSC, whereas 16 (61.5%) survived longer than 24 hours. Serum copeptin levels were significantly lower in patients who survived longer than 24 hours compared with those who died within the first 24 hours. Moreover, the mean CPR duration was significantly lower in patients surviving more than 24 hours compared with less than 24 hours. CONCLUSION: The serum copeptin level may serve as a guide in diagnostic decision making to predict ROSC in patients undergoing CPR and determining the short-term prognosis of patients with ROSC.

Plasma oxidative-stress parameters and prolidase activity in patients with various causes of abdominal pain.

PURPOSE: We aimed to investigate the predictive power of plasma prolidase activity and oxidative-stress parameters for distinguishing in patients with various causes of non-traumatic abdominal pain who presented to the emergency department. METHODS: This study enrolled 100 consecutive adult patients and 100 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. The patients were divided into surgically treated patients (STP); medically treated patients (MTP) and nonspecific abdominal pain (NSAP) patients. As predictors of early oxidative changes, the plasma prolidase activity, total oxidant status (TOS), total antioxidant status (TAS), and oxidative stress index (OSI) were assessed using a novel automated method. RESULTS: No significant difference was observed between the patients and the controls with respect to age or sex (p = 0.837 and 0.188, respectively). The plasma TOS, OSI value, and prolidase activity were significantly higher in the patients with abdominal pain than in the controls (p < 0.001, p = 0.001, and p < 0.001, respectively); however, there was no significant difference in the TAS (p = 0.211). The mean plasma TOS, OSI value, and prolidase activity differed significantly among the three groups (p < 0.001, p = 0.001, and p < 0.001, respectively). The STP had the highest TOS and prolidase activity. However, there was no significant difference in the mean plasma TAS in either group of patients (p = 0.419). CONCLUSION: The plasma prolidase activity and TOS level, as biomarkers of oxidative stress, enable discrimination of patients with NSAP from those with surgical abdominal pain that requires emergent surgical treatment.

16S rRNA gene profiling and genome reconstruction reveal community metabolic interactions and prebiotic potential of medicinal herbs used in neurodegenerative disease and as nootropics.

The prebiotic potential of nervine herbal medicines has been scarcely studied. We therefore used anaerobic human fecal cultivation to investigate whether medicinal herbs commonly used as treatment in neurological health and disease in Ayurveda and other traditional systems of medicine modulate gut microbiota. Profiling of fecal cultures supplemented with either Kapikacchu, Gotu Kola, Bacopa/Brahmi, Shankhapushpi, Boswellia/Frankincense, Jatamansi, Bhringaraj, Guduchi, Ashwagandha or Shatavari by 16S rRNA sequencing revealed profound changes in diverse taxa. Principal coordinate analysis highlights that each herb drives the formation of unique microbial communities predicted to display unique metabolic potential. The relative abundance of approximately one-third of the 243 enumerated species was altered by all herbs. Additional species were impacted in an herb-specific manner. In this study, we combine genome reconstruction of sugar utilization and short chain fatty acid (SCFA) pathways encoded in the genomes of 216 profiled taxa with monosaccharide composition analysis of each medicinal herb by quantitative mass spectrometry to enhance the interpretation of resulting microbial communities and discern potential drivers of microbiota restructuring. Collectively, our results indicate that gut microbiota engage in both protein and glycan catabolism, providing amino acid and sugar substrates that are consumed by fermentative species. We identified taxa that are efficient amino acid fermenters and those capable of both amino acid and sugar fermentation. Herb-induced microbial communities are predicted to alter the relative abundance of taxa encoding SCFA (butyrate and propionate) pathways. Co-occurrence network analyses identified a large number of taxa pairs in medicinal herb cultures. Some of these pairs displayed related culture growth relationships in replicate cultures highlighting potential functional interactions among medicinal herb-induced taxa.

Broom: application for non-redundant storage of high throughput sequencing data.

Motivation: The data generation capabilities of high throughput sequencing (HTS) instruments have exponentially increased over the last few years, while the cost of sequencing has dramatically decreased allowing this technology to become widely used in biomedical studies. For small labs and individual researchers, however, storage and transfer of large amounts of HTS data present a significant challenge. The recent trends in increased sequencing quality and genome coverage can be used to reconsider HTS data storage strategies. Results: We present Broom, a stand-alone application designed to select and store only high-quality sequencing reads at extremely high compression rates. Written in C++, the application accepts single and paired-end reads in FASTQ and FASTA formats and decompresses data in FASTA format. Availability and implementation: C++ code available at https://scsb.utmb.edu/labgroups/fofanov/broom.asp. Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Microbiome Interaction Networks and Community Structure From Laboratory-Reared and Field-Collected Aedes aegypti, Aedes albopictus, and Culex quinquefasciatus Mosquito Vectors.

Microbial interactions are an underappreciated force in shaping insect microbiome communities. Although pairwise patterns of symbiont interactions have been identified, we have a poor understanding regarding the scale and the nature of co-occurrence and co-exclusion interactions within the microbiome. To characterize these patterns in mosquitoes, we sequenced the bacterial microbiome of Aedes aegypti, Ae. albopictus, and Culex quinquefasciatus caught in the field or reared in the laboratory and used these data to generate interaction networks. For collections, we used traps that attracted host-seeking or ovipositing female mosquitoes to determine how physiological state affects the microbiome under field conditions. Interestingly, we saw few differences in species richness or microbiome community structure in mosquitoes caught in either trap. Co-occurrence and co-exclusion analysis identified 116 pairwise interactions substantially increasing the list of bacterial interactions observed in mosquitoes. Networks generated from the microbiome of Ae. aegypti often included highly interconnected hub bacteria. There were several instances where co-occurring bacteria co-excluded a third taxa, suggesting the existence of tripartite relationships. Several associations were observed in multiple species or in field and laboratory-reared mosquitoes indicating these associations are robust and not influenced by environmental or host factors. To demonstrate that microbial interactions can influence colonization of the host, we administered symbionts to Ae. aegypti larvae that either possessed or lacked their resident microbiota. We found that the presence of resident microbiota can inhibit colonization of particular bacterial taxa. Our results highlight that microbial interactions in mosquitoes are complex and influence microbiome composition.

Detection of multi-dimensional co-exclusion patterns in microbial communities.

Motivation: Identification of complex relationships among members of microbial communities is key to understand and control the microbiota. Co-exclusion is arguably one of the most important patterns reflecting micro-organisms' intolerance to each other's presence. Knowing these relations opens an opportunity to manipulate microbiotas, personalize anti-microbial and probiotic treatments as well as guide microbiota transplantation. The co-exclusion pattern however, cannot be appropriately described by a linear function nor its strength be estimated using covariance or (negative) Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients. This manuscript proposes a way to quantify the strength and evaluate the statistical significance of co-exclusion patterns between two, three or more variables describing a microbiota and allows one to extend analysis beyond micro-organism abundance by including other microbiome associated measurements such as, pH, temperature etc., as well as estimate the expected numbers of false positive co-exclusion patterns in a co-exclusion network. Results: The implemented computational pipeline (CoEx) tested against 2380 microbial profiles (samples) from The Human Microbiome Project resulted in body-site specific pairwise co-exclusion patterns. Availability and implementation: C++ source code for calculation of the score and P-value for two, three and four dimensional co-exclusion patterns as well as source code and executable files for the CoEx pipeline are available at https://scsb.utmb.edu/labgroups/fofanov/co-exclusion_in_microbial_communities.asp. Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Mosquito bottlenecks alter viral mutant swarm in a tissue and time-dependent manner with contraction and expansion of variant positions and diversity.

Viral diversity is theorized to play a significant role during virus infections, particularly for arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses) that must infect both vertebrate and invertebrate hosts. To determine how viral diversity influences mosquito infection and dissemination Culex taeniopus mosquitoes were infected with the Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus endemic strain 68U201. Bodies and legs/wings of the mosquitoes were collected individually and subjected to multi-parallel sequencing. Virus sequence diversity was calculated for each tissue. Greater diversity was seen in mosquitoes with successful dissemination versus those with no dissemination. Diversity across time revealed that bottlenecks influence diversity following dissemination to the legs/wings, but levels of diversity are restored by Day 12 post-dissemination. Specific minority variants were repeatedly identified across the mosquito cohort, some in nearly every tissue and time point, suggesting that certain variants are important in mosquito infection and dissemination. This study demonstrates that the interaction between the mosquito and the virus results in changes in diversity and the mutational spectrum and may be essential for successful transition of the bottlenecks associated with arbovirus infection.

An incidental image of a patient with chest pain after fall from a tree: Swyer-James-MacLeod syndrome?

Unilateral hyperlucent lung was firstly described by Swyer and James 1950s. After that, some patients with same disease were detected by Macleod . Then this syndrome was named as Swyer- James-Macleod syndrome (SJMS), and this syndrome includes a smaller or normal sized unilateral hyperlucent lung. The diagnosis of SJMS includes a detailed evaluation and the exclusion of other reasons of unilateral hypertranslucency. In literature, small groups of patients with this syndrome have been described. This paper reports a 45-year-old male presented to our emergency department with chest pain after fall from height 24 h ago. In his computed tomography no rib fracture, pneumothorax and hemothorax. But an abnormal image (5.5 cm hyperlucent area) was seen in his left lung. This report aims to present one of incidentally diagnosed rare case of SJMS.

Frontal lobe ischemic stroke presenting with peripheral type facial palsy: A crucial diagnostic challenge in emergency practice.

Here, we illustrate a 69-year old female admitting with weakness on left side of the face who firstly considered peripheral facial palsy in the forefront. However, detailed neurological examination and cranial MRI findings finally yielded the proper diagnosis of right hemisphere ischemic stroke. Via this remarkable presentation, we point out the clinical challenges in evaluation processes of patients with facial palsy in emergency practice and emphasize the importance of detailed examination for the proper diagnosis as well as initiation of appropriate treatment agents without delay.

The ability of human nuclear DNA to cause false positive low-abundance heteroplasmy calls varies across the mitochondrial genome.

BACKGROUND: Low-abundance mutations in mitochondrial populations (mutations with minor allele frequency ≤ 1%), are associated with cancer, aging, and neurodegenerative disorders. While recent progress in high-throughput sequencing technology has significantly improved the heteroplasmy identification process, the ability of this technology to detect low-abundance mutations can be affected by the presence of similar sequences originating from nuclear DNA (nDNA). To determine to what extent nDNA can cause false positive low-abundance heteroplasmy calls, we have identified mitochondrial locations of all subsequences that are common or similar (one mismatch allowed) between nDNA and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). RESULTS: Performed analysis revealed up to a 25-fold variation in the lengths of longest common and longest similar (one mismatch allowed) subsequences across the mitochondrial genome. The size of the longest subsequences shared between nDNA and mtDNA in several regions of the mitochondrial genome were found to be as low as 11 bases, which not only allows using these regions to design new, very specific PCR primers, but also supports the hypothesis of the non-random introduction of mtDNA into the human nuclear DNA. CONCLUSION: Analysis of the mitochondrial locations of the subsequences shared between nDNA and mtDNA suggested that even very short (36 bases) single-end sequencing reads can be used to identify low-abundance variation in 20.4% of the mitochondrial genome. For longer (76 and 150 bases) reads, the proportion of the mitochondrial genome where nDNA presence will not interfere found to be 44.5 and 67.9%, when low-abundance mutations at 100% of locations can be identified using 417 bases long single reads. This observation suggests that the analysis of low-abundance variations in mitochondria population can be extended to a variety of large data collections such as NCBI Sequence Read Archive, European Nucleotide Archive, The Cancer Genome Atlas, and International Cancer Genome Consortium.

Bartonella melophagi in blood of domestic sheep (Ovis aries) and sheep keds (Melophagus ovinus) from the southwestern US: Cultures, genetic characterization, and ecological connections.

Bartonella melophagi sp. nov. was isolated from domestic sheep blood and from sheep keds (Melophagus ovinus) from the southwestern United States. The sequence analyses of the reference strain performed by six molecular markers consistently demonstrated that B. melophagi relates to but differ from other Bartonella species isolated from domestic and wild ruminants. Presence of 183 genes specific for B. melophagi, being absent in genomes of other Bartonella species associated with ruminants also supports the separation of this bacterial species from species of other ruminants. Bartonella DNA was detected in all investigated sheep keds; however, culturing of these bacteria from sheep blood rejects a speculation that B. melophagi is an obligatory endosymbiont. Instead, the results support the hypothesis that the domestic sheep is a natural host reservoir for B. melophagi and the sheep ked its main vector. This bacterium was not isolated from the blood of bighorn sheep and domestic goats belonging to the same subfamily Caprinae. B. melophagi has also been shown to be zoonotic and needs to be investigated further.

Secondary Analysis of the NCI-60 Whole Exome Sequencing Data Indicates Significant Presence of Propionibacterium acnes Genomic Material in Leukemia (RPMI-8226) and Central Nervous System (SF-295, SF-539, and SNB-19) Cell Lines.

The NCI-60 human tumor cell line panel has been used in a broad range of cancer research over the last two decades. A landmark 2013 whole exome sequencing study of this panel added an exceptional new resource for cancer biologists. The complementary analysis of the sequencing data produced by this study suggests the presence of Propionibacterium acnes genomic sequences in almost half of the datasets, with the highest abundance in the leukemia (RPMI-8226) and central nervous system (SF-295, SF-539, and SNB-19) cell lines. While the origin of these contaminating bacterial sequences remains to be determined, observed results suggest that computational control for the presence of microbial genomic material is a necessary step in the analysis of the high throughput sequencing (HTS) data.

Hemostatic efficacy of a traditional medicinal plant extract (Ankaferd Blood Stopper) in bleeding control.

The aim of this study is to assess the in vivo hemostatic effect of Ankaferd Blood Stopper (ABS) on rats using a tail bleeding model. Wistar rats were randomized into 4 groups of 9 each: group 1, control, no pretreatment, irrigated with saline; group 2, no pretreatment, irrigated with ABS; group 3, control, heparin pretreatment, irrigated with saline; and group 4, heparin pretreatment, irrigated with ABS. To control bleeding, compressive dressings were placed after instilling 1 mL of either ABS or saline to the bleeding area. Without heparin pretreatment, ABS shortened hemostasis time by 1.57 minutes and reduced the amount of bleeding by 0.85 g. With heparin pretreatment, ABS shortened hemostasis time by 3.29 minutes and reduced the amount of bleeding by 1.32 g. The ABS was more effective than saline irrigation for treating tail tip bleeding in rats, with or without heparin pretreatment, while also using a compressive dressing.

The role of oxidative stress and inflammation in the early evaluation of acute non-ST-elevation myocardial infarction: an observational study.

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to assess the role of oxidative stress (OS) and inflammation in the early evaluation of initial acute non -ST -elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) compared with unstable angina pectoris (USAP). METHODS: Forty-seven (54%) patients with NSTEMI and 40 (46%) with (USAP) were included in this cross-section observational study. We assessed the oxidative stress and inflammation parameters. Statistical analysis was performed using Fisher's exact test, Chi-square test, Mann-Whitney U test, Student's t-test, and Pearson correlation analysis for assess the correlations between variables. RESULTS: Plasma total oxidative stress (TOS) and OS index levels were significantly higher (p<0.001 for both comparisons), in patients with NSTEMI. In addition, white blood cell count (WBC) and high-sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) levels were significantly higher in patients with NSTEMI (respectively; p<0.001, p=0.02). Age, WBC and low- density lipoprotein cholesterol showed positive correlations with TOS level (Pearson correlation coefficient: r=0.290, p=0.006; r=0.431, p<0.001; r=0.219, p=0.042 respectively), and also age showed positive correlation with OS index (Pearson correlation coefficient; r=0.246; p=0.021). However, the values of the troponin I and creatine kinase-MB fraction did not differ between the two groups (p>0.05 for all). CONCLUSION: TOS, OSI, WBC and CRP levels are significantly higher in NSTEMI subject. These data suggest that inflammatory processes and oxidative stress together play a role in the pathogenesis of acute NSTEMI.