Search results for "Review article"
showing 10 items of 426 documents
Confidence Interval or P-Value?: Part 4 of a Series on Evaluation of Scientific Publications
2009
An understanding of p-values and confidence intervals is necessary for the evaluation of scientific articles. This article will inform the reader of the meaning and interpretation of these two statistical concepts.The uses of these two statistical concepts and the differences between them are discussed on the basis of a selective literature search concerning the methods employed in scientific articles.P-values in scientific studies are used to determine whether a null hypothesis formulated before the performance of the study is to be accepted or rejected. In exploratory studies, p-values enable the recognition of any statistically noteworthy findings. Confidence intervals provide informatio…
Midregion PTHrP and Human Breast Cancer Cells
2010
PTHrP is a polyhormone undergoing proteolytic processing into smaller bioactive forms, comprising an N-terminal peptide, which is the mediator of the “classical” PTH-like effect, as well as midregion and C-terminal peptides. The midregion PTHrP domain (38-94)-amide was found to restrain growth and invasionin vitroof some breast cancer cell lines, causing striking toxicity and accelerating death; the most responsive being MDA-MB231, whose tumorigenesis was also attenuatedin vivo. In addition, midregion PTHrP appears to be imported in the nucleoplasm of cultured MDA-MB231 cells andin vitro, it can bind chromatin of metaphase spread preparations and also an isolated 20-mer oligonucleotide, the…
Benralizumab: From the Basic Mechanism of Action to the Potential Use in the Biological Therapy of Severe Eosinophilic Asthma
2018
Asthma is a very frequent chronic airway disease that includes many different clinical phenotypes and inflammatory patterns. In particular, eosinophilic bronchial inflammation is often associated with allergic as well as nonallergic asthma. The most important cytokine involved in the induction, maintenance, and amplification of airway eosinophilia in asthma is interleukin-5 (IL-5), released by both T helper 2 (Th2) lymphocytes and group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2). Hence, IL-5 and its receptor are suitable targets for selective biologic drugs which can play a key role in add-on treatment of severe eosinophilic asthma refractory to corticosteroids. Within such a context, the anti-IL-5 mon…
Lurasidone in the Treatment of Bipolar Depression: Systematic Review of Systematic Reviews
2017
Introduction. A burgeoning number of systematic reviews considering lurasidone in the treatment of bipolar depression have occurred since its Food and Drug Administration extended approval in 2013. While a paucity of available quantitative evidence still precludes preliminary meta-analysis on the matter, the present quality assessment of systematic review of systematic reviews, nonetheless, aims at highlighting current essential information on the topic. Methods. Both published and unpublished systematic reviews about lurasidone mono- or adjunctive therapy in the treatment of bipolar depression were searched by two independent authors inquiring PubMed/Cochrane/Embase/Scopus from inception u…
The dental management of patients at risk of medication-related osteonecrosis of the jaw: New paradigm of primary prevention
2018
Medication-related osteonecrosis of the jaw (MRONJ) is a serious adverse reaction of antiresorptive and antiangiogenic agents; it is a potentially painful and debilitating condition that can considerably affect the quality of life of patients. Furthermore, even if its epidemiology and pathogenesis have still not been fully clarified, several risk factors related to MRONJ have been recognized in prevention protocols. Three main risk factors are as follows: (i) the type of ONJ-related medications: antiresorptive (e.g., Bisphosphonates, Denosumab) and antiangiogenic drugs (e.g., Bevacizumab, Sunitinib); (ii) the category of patient at MRONJ risk: cancer versus non-cancer patient; (iii) the typ…
Evolution of small prokaryotic genomes
2015
As revealed by genome sequencing, the biology of prokaryotes with reduced genomes is strikingly diverse. These include free-living prokaryotes with ∼800 genes as well as endosymbiotic bacteria with as few as ∼140 genes. Comparative genomics is revealing the evolutionary mechanisms that led to these small genomes. In the case of free-living prokaryotes, natural selection directly favored genome reduction, while in the case of endosymbiotic prokaryotes neutral processes played a more prominent role. However, new experimental data suggest that selective processes may be at operation as well for endosymbiotic prokaryotes at least during the first stages of genome reduction. Endosymbiotic prokar…
Redox regulation of genome stability by effects on gene expression, epigenetic pathways and DNA damage/repair
2015
Reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (e.g. H2O2, nitric oxide) confer redox regulation of essential cellular signaling pathways such as cell differentiation, proliferation, migration and apoptosis. In addition, classical regulation of gene expression or activity, including gene transcription to RNA followed by translation to the protein level, by transcription factors (e.g. NF-κB, HIF-1α) and mRNA binding proteins (e.g. GAPDH, HuR) is subject to redox regulation. This review will give an update of recent discoveries in this field, and specifically highlight the impact of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species on DNA repair systems that contribute to genomic stability. Emphasis will be placed …
Gamification and Behavior Change Techniques in Diabetes Self-Management Apps
2019
Background: Diabetes management apps may have positive effects on diabetes self-management. It remains unclear, however, which app features are particularly effective and encourage sustained app usage. Behavior change techniques (BCTs) and gamification are promising approaches to improve user engagement. However, little is known about the frequency BCTs and gamification techniques (GTs) are actually used. This app review aims to provide an overview of BCTs and GTs in current diabetes management apps. Methods: Google’s Play Store was searched for applications using a broad search strategy (keyword: “diabetes”). We limited our research to freely available apps. A total of 56 apps matched the …
Asthma in the older adult: Presentation, considerations and clinical management
2015
Asthma affects older adults to the same extent as children and adolescents. However, one is led to imagine that asthma prevalence decreases with aging and becomes a rare entity in the elderly. From a clinical perspective, this misconception has nontrivial consequences in that the recognition of the disease is delayed and the treatment postponed. The overall management of asthma in the elderly population is also complicated by specific features that the disease develops in the most advanced ages, and by the difficulties that the physician encounters when approaching the older asthmatic subjects. The current review article aims at describing the specific clinical presentations of asthma in th…
The Free Radical Theory of Aging Revisited: The Cell Signaling Disruption Theory of Aging
2013
AbstractSignificance: The free radical theory of aging has provided a theoretical framework for an enormous amount of work leading to significant advances in our understanding of aging. Up to the turn of the century, the theory received abundant support from observations coming from fields as far apart as comparative physiology or molecular biology. Recent Advances: Work from many laboratories supports the theory, for instance showing that overexpression of antioxidant enzymes results in increases in life-span. But other labs have shown that in some cases, there is an increased oxidative stress and increased longevity. The discovery that free radicals can not only cause molecular damage to …