Medicina, Volume 55, Issue 6

Background: Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is the sixth most common form of cancer worldwide, with approximately 630,000 new cases diagnosed each year. The development of low-cost and non-invasive tools for the detection of HNSCC using...

Background and objectives: T regulatory lymphocytes (Treg) are one of the subsets of T-lymphocytes involved in the interaction of neoplastic tumors and the host immune system, and they may impair the immune reaction against cancer. It has been shown...

Background and Objectives: Radiation enteritis is a common side effect after radiotherapy for abdominal and pelvic malignancies. The aim of the present study was to investigate the protective effect of melatonin, known for its free radical scavenging...

Background and objectives: The purpose of the study is to correlate vascular calcification biomarkers osteoprotegerin (OPG) and 25-hydroxyvitamin D₃ (25-OH-D₃), indicators of arterial stiffness carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (c-f PWV) and renal...

Background and objectives: The aim of our study is to validate the registration of knee arthroplasty revisions in the Lithuanian Arthroplasty Register (LAR) and thus give an indication of the accuracy of the published revision rates. Materials and me...

Background and objectives. Stroke-induced mortality is the third most common cause of death in developed countries. Intense interest has focused on the recurrent ischemic stroke, which rate makes up 30% during first 5 years after first-ever stroke. T...

Background and Objectives: Electrocautery adenoidectomy (ECA) is a common procedure performed in paediatric otolaryngology. ECA has been preferred over curettage adenoidectomy due to its lower intraoperative bleeding rates, decreased procedure time,...

Background and Objectives: Teeth decay and plaque are complicated problems created by oral pathogens. Tecoma stans (L.) and Cassia javanica (L.) are two ornamental evergreen plants widely distributed in Egypt. These plants are traditionally used for...

Background and objectives: Dysregulation of TGF-β signaling plays multiple roles in cancer development and progression. In the canonical TGF-β pathway, TGF-β regulates the expression of hundreds of target genes via interaction with Sma...

Psychotherapy with suicidal patients is inherently challenging. Psychodynamic psychotherapy focuses attention on the patient’s internal experience through the creation of a therapeutic space for an open-ended exploration of thoughts, fears, and...

Background and objectives: toxic liver injury results in nitrooxidative stress. Melatonin is a potent free radical scavenger, an inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) inhibitor and an activator of antioxidant enzymes. The aim of this study was to in...

Background and objectives: Impacted third molars (ITM) are the most commonly-impacted teeth. There is a risk for ITM to cause a number of pathological conditions, and external root resorption (ERR) of adjacent teeth is one of the most prevalent. Reta...

The concepts underlying hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) pathogenesis have evolved greatly over the last 60 years since the pioneering work of the British pathologist Donald Teare, presenting the autopsy findings of “asymmetric hypertrophy of...

Background and objectives: Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the deadliest malignancies, with the underlying pathophysiological mechanisms still not completely understood. In this study, we aimed to investigate the signal transducer and activator of tran...

Background and objective: Changing to a different spirometry reference equation can result in misinterpretation of spirometric findings. Currently, there is limited data about any discordance between the interpretations of airway obstruction (AO) usi...

Several researchers have analyzed the alterations of the methionine cycle associated with liver disease to clarify the pathogenesis of human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and improve the preventive and the therapeutic approaches to this tumor. Diffe...

Background and objectives: To enter the target cell, HIV-1 binds not only CD4 but also a co-receptor β-chemokine receptor 5 (CCR5) or α chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4). Limited information is available on the impact of co-receptor usage on HI...

Background and Objectives: Several studies inspected the impact of P2X7 polymorphisms on individual susceptibility to tuberculosis (TB), but the findings are still controversial and inconclusive. To achieve a more precise estimation, we conducted a m...

Infective endocarditis is a serious condition, which is associated with high mortality in elderly patients. Gemella haemolysans (GH) is a microorganism from the Streptococcus family, rarely involved in infective endocarditis. Here, we present a case...

Background and Objective: During the last few years, a trend has been noted towards embryos being transferred at the blastocyst stage, which has been associated with improved rates regarding implantation and clinical pregnancy in comparison to cleava...

Background and Oobjectives: Lung cancer, a pressing issue in present-day society due to its high prevalence and mortality rate, can be managed effectively by long-term delivery of anticancer agents encapsulated in nanoparticles in the form of inhalab...

Background and Objectives: Bacterial urinary tract infection (UTI) is the most common ailment affecting all age groups in males and females. The commercial antibiotics usage augments antibiotics resistance and creates higher recurrence rates of such...

Background and Objectives: In general, patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are ignorant of the physician’s role and of RA-related feet problems. The aim of our study was to validate a questionnaire on the knowledge of different aspects of o...

Background and objectives: Adipose tissue and skeletal muscle secrete adiponectin, a hormone abundantly secreted by adipocytes, that through the adiponectin receptor, regulate glucose and lipid metabolism. Adiponectin appears to protect skeletal musc...

Regarding cancer as a genetic multi-factorial disease, a number of aspects need to be investigated and analyzed in terms of cancer’s predisposition, development and prognosis. One of these multi-dimensional factors, which has gained increased attenti...

Asthma is one of the most important medical and social problems of our time due to the prevalence and the complexity of its treatment. Chronic inflammation that is characteristic of asthma is accompanied by bronchial obstruction, which involves vario...

Background and objectives: Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are the third most common infections in humans, representing a significant factor of morbidity, both among outpatients and inpatients. The pathogenic role of Citrobacter, Enterobacter, and Se...

Background and objective: The assessment of physical fitness has become a necessary issue in epidemiological studies, since a reduction in fitness is directly associated with early mortality. Therefore, the development of simple, accurate, and inexpe...

Background and objective: We investigated the ability of preoperative serum values of red blood cell distribution width (RDW), neutrophil lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and plateletcrit (PCT) to predict Fuhrman grades (FG) and tumor stages of renal cell carc...

Background and objectives: Boxing is a popular combat sport that requires high intensity and cooperation. However, there are limited data about the influence of boxing matches on blood parameters. The purpose of the present study was to investigate t...

Glaucoma is a common complex disease that leads to irreversible blindness worldwide. Even though preclinical studies showed that lowering intraocular pressure (IOP) could prevent retinal ganglion cells loss, clinical evidence suggests that lessening...

Background and objectives: Several studies showed that there is a relationship between vitamin and mineral status and muscle strength. In particular this is the case for handgrip strength (HS) and vitamin D deficiency. In bariatric surgery there is a...

Background and objectives: Health systems all over the world are confronted with an alarming rise of cases in which individuals hesitate, delay, and even refuse vaccination, despite availability of quality vaccine services. In order to mitigate and c...

Background and objectives: Non-melanoma skin cancers (NMSCs) represent the most frequently encountered malignancy in organ transplant recipients and their incidence increases proportionally to the duration of immunosuppression. Furthermore, patients...

Background and Objective: Current evidence suggests that patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) should receive influenza and pneumococcal vaccinations. Despite international guidelines recommending vaccination in patients with COP...

Background and Objectives: Quality of life (QOL) assessment during pregnancy contributes to determining women’s unmet needs and preventing negative health outcomes. In this study, we aimed to identify the effects of participants’ characte...

Background and Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate whether tissue oxygen saturation (StO2) is a reliable and objective method for assessing the adequacy of infraclavicular block and to describe the time course of StO2 changes. Materia...

Background and objectives: The aim of this study was to research oxidative stress and thiol/disulphide homeostasis in Graves’ patients. Materials and Methods: The study included 33 Graves’ patients (research group) and 35 healthy subjects...

Background and Objectives: The participation of women in sports, including basketball, is becoming increasingly common, and this increased involvement raises concerns about the potential risk of sports injuries, but there is a lack of epidemiological...

Diabetes mellitus (DM) poses a major public health problem worldwide, with ever-increasing incidence and prevalence in recent years. The Institute for Alternative Futures (IAF) expects that the total number of people with type 1 and type 2 DM in the...

Background and objectives: Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is a devastating malignancy with poor prognosis. Reliable biomarkers for MPM diagnosis, monitoring, and prognosis are needed. The aim of this study was to identify genes associated with...

Background and Objectives: Given the considerable spatial, temporal, and ecological factors, heterogeneity, which affects emergency response, persistence, and dissemination of genetic determinants that confer microorganisms their resistance to antibi...

The burden of diabetic kidney disease (DKD) has increased worldwide in the last two decades. Besides the growth of diabetic population, the main contributors to this phenomenon are the absence of novel nephroprotective drugs and the limited efficacy...

Background and objectives: Identification of cancer biomarkers that are differentially expressed (DE) between two biological conditions is an important task in many microarray studies. There exist several methods in the literature in this regards and...

Background: Simple field tests such as the Timed Up and Go test (TUG) and 30 s Chair Stand test are commonly used to evaluate physical function in the elderly, providing crude outcome measures. Using an automatic chronometer, it is possible to obtain...

Background and objectives: Aortic rupture is known as one of the potential causes of sudden cardiac death in athletes. Nevertheless, adaptation strategies for aortic root dilation in athletes vary. The purpose of this study was to investigate aortic...

Background and objectives: Interleukin-7 (IL-7) is exploited in cancer immunotherapies although its status in solid tumors is largely unknown. We aimed to determine its systemic and local concentrations in esophageal (EC), gastric (GC), and colorecta...

Background: Trauma-induced aortic injuries continue to be an important factor in morbimortality in patients with blunt trauma. Objectives: To determine the characteristics of aortic lesions in patients with closed thoracic trauma and associated thora...

Background and Objectives: The ACE gene encodes the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE), a component of the renin-angiotensin system. Increased ACE activity may cause abnormal regulation of placental circulation and angiogenesis, resulting in adverse...

Background and objectives: Pediatric tibial shaft fractures often have satisfactory outcomes after closed reduction and casting. However, surgical treatment may be required in unstable or open fractures. Titanium elastic nails (TENs) are a good optio...