Cigarette smoke can provoke inflammation through stimulation of inflammatory cells which produce proinflammatory cytokines. Chronic inflammation is broadly recognized to generate cancer development through genotoxicity. 14 However, little is known about the correlation between the IL-6 and DNA damage in smokers.
Background: Around 20% of patients with chronic hepatitis C infection (HCV) have persistently normal alanine aminotransferase (PNALT) levels. These patients are considered to have mild degree of histological hepatic damage. This study was conducted to compare the histological degree of necro-inflammation and stage of fibrosis among HCV patients with PNALT and patients with persistently or intermittently elevated serum ALT (PIEALT) levels..Methods: This study includes 154 untreated patients with serological and histological diagnosis of chronic HCV infection. A total of 70 patients with PNALT (group A) and 84 patients with PIEALT (group B) were identified and treated with 6 months interferon therapy. Histological grade of necro-inflammatory activity and the stage of fibrosis was evaluated by Ishak scoring system. HCV-RNA quantification was done by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Further univariate and multivariate analysis was done to evaluate correlation between patients characteristics and significant hepatic fibrosis..Results: Out of one hundred and fifty four patients, mean ALT was 30.59 ± 5.59 U/L in group A as compare to 68.65 ± 23.17 U/L in group B (p = 0.001). Patients with PNALT were younger (p = 0.005) with milder grade of necrosis (p = 0.037), lower serum HCV viral load (p = 0.044) and significant achievement of sustained virological response (p = 0.012) as compare to patients with abnormal ALT. Different variable were also analysed by univariate and mutivaraite analysis among patients with significant and insignificant fibrosis. High serum HCV-RNA level was found to be the independent variable predictive of advanced fibrosis among HCV infected patients (OR = 0.89; 95% CI = 1.65-1.94; p < 0.001) with r2 = 80%.Conclusions: Our study suggests that normal serum ALT does not mean healthy liver. So, histological evaluation is still an essential tool to assess liver damage precisely.
Statistically significant strong positive correlation between SAA-LDL and genotoxicity in smoke-exposed rats shows that changes in one is associated with changes in other and vice versa.
Background: The most potent and effective drugs used for the management of blood pressure in hypertensive patients are Calcium channel blockers (CCBs). Nifedipine, a CCB, acts by blocking entry of calcium ions all the way through the voltage gated calcium channels (VGCCs) of L-type present in the smooth muscle cells of blood vesselsand reducing the blood pressure by decreasing the peripheral vascular resistance. Objectives: The study objective was to determine the effect of nifedipine on serum luteinizing hormone (LH) and serum testosterone in male Sprague Dawley rats. Study Design: Animal experimental study. Setting: All experiments were conducted at the Research laboratory of Shifa College of Medicine, Islamabad along with National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad. Period: October, 2012 to April, 2014. Methods: The study was done on adult male Sprague-Dawley rats (N= 60) aged 90-120 days old and their body weights varied between 200 + 50 grams. Rats were divided intotwo groups (n=30). Group A was administered0.5 ml distilled water/rat daily orally, group B was administered orally with nifedipine 50 mg/kg/rat dissolved in 1ml of DMSO. All the doses were given to rats for 8 weeks. After 8 weeks, serum luteinizing hormone and serum testosterone were measured in both groups. Results: In Nifedipine treated group, serum testosterone was significantly decreasedand serum LH was unaffected as compared to the control group. Conclusion: Nifedipine has adverse effects on male fertility as it decreases serum testosterone level.
Objective: To investigate the prevalence of S. aureus in hospitalized patients of Islamabad. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Study Duration: Pakistan Institute of Medical Science, Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology Lab, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Islamabad, from Sep 2017 to Sep 2018. Methodology: A total of 500 samples were collected. The isolates were divided into four study groups according to their source of origin i.e. group 1 (dermal group), group 2 (nasal group), group 3 (blood group) and group 4 (urine group). Gram staining, catalase test and DNA se media analysis were done for validation of S. aureus. Disc diffusion test (for antibiotic susceptibility), Oxacillin disc test (to differentiate between methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and methicillin-susceptible staphylococcus aureus) and minimal inhibitory concentration (for susceptibility to vancomycin), were performed. Results: Degree of the prevalence of staphylococcus aureus was 21%, 17%, 9% and 8% in group 1, 2, 3 & 4 respectively. The overall prevalence of staphylococcus aureus was 19.5% in all isolates. The disc diffusion test showed the descending resistance pattern of isolates i.e. 100, 94, 94, 76, 58, 55, 47, 43, 40 and 37% for penicillin, ciprofloxacin, Kanamycin, erythromycin, tetracycline, oxazolidinone, sulfamethoxazole, doxycycline, clindamycin, and cipoxin respectively. Minimal inhibitory concentration found only one sample resistant at 2ug/l concentration of Vancomycin. Moreover, Oxacillin disc test showed 52% methicillin-susceptibleStaphylococcus aureus while 48.2% methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus among all isolates. Conclusion: There is an increase in the frequency of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus. Single vancomycin resistant staphylococcus aureus strain was also isolated.
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