Activity

The percentage of patients with FA with significant depressive symptoms was also greater (36.4% vs. 18.5%; p = 0.002). CONCLUSIONS The presence of FA among T2DM patients implied a worse glycaemic control. Microvascular complications and depressive symptoms were higher among these patients.INTRODUCTION AND PURPOSE The patellofemoral joint has proved to be the most problematic element of modern TKA for postoperative anterior knee pain; the positioning of the femoral component constitutes a critical phase in this issue. The objective of our study was to evaluate the possible role of either anterior positioning or posterior positioning of the femoral shield compared to the reference plane represented by the anterior cortex, on the anterior knee pain after knee arthroplasty. METHODS Forty-eight patients treated with TKA were followed up approximately 12 months. None of them have been submitted to any patellar treatment. We observed the position of femoral shield with respect to the anterior cortical line of femur dividing patients into three groups patients with significant notching, patients with no notching (shield corresponding to anterior cortical line) and patients with anterior positioning of shield. We evaluated clinical and functional outcomes with KSS, anterior knee pain with Kujala’s score and adverse events such as periprosthetic fractures. RESULTS We found a better clinical and functional result for patients with femoral shield positioned in line with anterior cortical cortex with respect to both TKAs with femoral notching and to protruding anterior femoral components; there were no main differences in anterior postoperative score by Kujala’s system. selleck chemicals We observed a periprosthetic fracture in a patient with an important femoral notching. CONCLUSIONS We cannot consider our study as an objective conclusion to the argument. We need more RCTs in order to study the proper influence of either notching or protrusion of femoral shield component onto anterior postoperative pain. Anyway positioning of femoral shield in anterior-posterior direction could be an interesting new critical object of study about anterior knee pain after TKA.A jammed screw is a well-known complication of locking plates. Noncompliance to the standard techniques, nonusage of torque limiting screwdrivers and manufacturer-specific instrumentations are the common causes of jammed locking screw heads. Previously, various techniques have been described for the retrieval of jammed locking screws by damaging the screw head, using conical reverse threaded drill bits and often cutting off the plates at jammed screw sites that often generate metal debris and cause bone and soft tissue damage of unknown extent. We present a simple technique and a novel device that does not damage the screw head or the plate, and therefore, no metal debris is generated. The threads on the terminal part of the screw are used to disengage the jammed locking screw head from its locking hole.PURPOSE Diastasis of the sacroiliac joint after pelvic ring injury is commonly reduced by lagging by design with partially threaded (PT) screws. There may be a biomechanical benefit to lagging by technique with fully threaded (FT) screws. The purpose of this study was to compare these two methods. METHODS Twelve pairs of synthetic bone blocks were lagged together with 8.0-mm FT or PT screws. Maximum compressive and steady-state force was measured. Pullout force testing was performed. RESULTS The maximum compressive force of FT and PT screws was not different [mean difference (MD) 32 Newtons (N), 95% confidence interval (CI) 124, 60)]; however, lagging by technique with FT screws resulted in significantly higher steady-state force (MD 83 N, 95% CI 165, 5) and pullout force (MD 634 N, 95% CI 778, 491). CONCLUSION Lagging by technique with large diameter FT screws has a biomechanical advantage over lagging by design with PT screws.Pancreatic cancer is a highly progressive malignant tumor for which there is a critical unmet need for novel therapeutic strategies. A previous study of the authors indicated that VE-821, a selective inhibitor of the ataxia-telangiectasia-mutated and rad3-related protein (ATR), has antitumor efficacy. In this study, the effect of programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) on the sensitivity to VE-821 was investigated in p53 mutant pancreatic cancer cells. These results show that BxPC-3 cells exhibited higher sensitivity to VE-821 than mesenchymal PANC-1 cells, which were more migratory and had higher expressions of PD-L1 and CD44. When VE-821 was applied to two cells, epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) was induced in PANC-1 cells with concomitant upregulation of PD-L1 and CD44, while BxPC-3 cells did not manifest these changes. Attenuation of PD-L1 expression suppressed VE-821-induced EMT, inhibited cell migration, and downregulated CD44 expression. Furthermore, PD-L1 inhibition partially reversed the activation of AKT/ERK, enhanced DNA damage, and increased VE-821 sensitivity in PANC-1 cells. Analysis of GEPIA data showed positive correlation of PD-L1 expression with EMT-related transcription factors. Taken together, these results suggest a novel function of PD-L1 in regulating response to ATR inhibition. These data highlight PD-L1 inhibition as a promising target to enhance sensitivity to ATR inhibitors in mesenchymal pancreatic cancer.Directed evolution has been proven as a powerful tool for developing proteins and strains with novel or enhanced features. In this study, a dual selection system was designed to tune the binding specificity of a transcription factor to a particular ligand with the ampicillin resistance gene amp (ON selection) as the positive selection marker and the levansucrase gene sacB (OFF selection) as the negative selection marker. It was applied to the lead responsive transcription factor PbrR in a whole-cell lead biosensor previously constructed in our lab (Jia et al. in Fems Microbiol Lett 365fny157, 2018). After multiple rounds of ON-OFF selection, two mutants with higher specificity for lead were selected. Structural analysis revealed that the mutation C134 located on the metal-binding loop at the C-terminal of PbrR is likely associated with the enhanced binding to both lead and cadmium. The double mutations D64A and L68S close to the metal-binding residue C79 may lead to the reduced binding specificity toward zinc ions.