BACKGROUND: Urinary tract is subjected to a variety of disorders such as urethral stricture, which often develops as a result of scarring process. Urethral stricture can be treated by urethral dilation and urethrotomy; but in cases of long urethral strictures, substitution urethroplasty with genital skin and buccal mucosa grafts is the only option. However a number of complications such as infection as a result of hair growth in neo-urethra, and stone formation restrict the application of those grafts. Therefore, tissue engineering techniques recently emerged as an alternative approach, aiming to overcome those restrictions. The aim of this review is to provide a comprehensive coverage on the strategies employed and the translational status of urethral tissue engineering over the past years and to propose a combinatory strategy for the future of urethral tissue engineering. METHODS: Data collection was based on the key articles published in English language in years between 2006 and 2018 using the searching terms of urethral stricture and tissue engineering on PubMed database. RESULTS: Differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells into urothelial and smooth muscle cells to be used for urologic application does not offer any advantage over autologous urothelial and smooth muscle cells. Among studied scaffolds, synthetic scaffolds with proper porosity and mechanical strength is the best option to be used for urethral tissue engineering. CONCLUSION: Hypoxia-preconditioned mesenchymal stem cells in combination with autologous cells seeded on a prevascularized synthetic and biodegradable scaffold can be said to be the best combinatory strategy in engineering of human urethra.
BackgroundPrognostic measures to determine burn mortality are essential in evaluating the severity of individual burn victims. This is an important process of triaging patients with high risk of mortality that may be nursed in the acute care setting. Malaysian burn research is lacking with only one publication identified which describes the epidemiology of burn victims. Therefore, the objective of this study was to go one step further and identify the predictors of burn mortality from a Malaysian burns intensive care unit (BICU) which may be used to triage patients at higher risk of death. MethodsThis is a retrospective cohort study of all admissions to Hospital Sultan Ismail’s BICU from January 2010 till October 2015. Admission criteria were in accordance with the American Burn Association guidelines, and risk factors of interest were recorded. Data was analyzed using simple logistic regression to determine significant predictors of mortality. Survival analysis with time to death event was performed using the Kaplan-Meier survival curve with log-rank test.ResultsThrough the 6-year period, 393 patients were admitted with a male preponderance of 73.8%. The mean age and length of stay were 35.6 (±15.72) years and 15.3 (±18.91) days. There were 48 mortalities with an overall mortality rate of 12.2%. Significant risk factors identified on simple logistic regression were total body surface area (TBSA) > 20% (p < 0.001), inhalation injury (p < 0.001) and presence of early systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) (p < 0.001). Survival analysis using Kaplan-Meier survival curve showed similar results with TBSA > 20%, presence of SIRS, mechanical ventilation and inhalation injury which were associated with poorer survival (p < 0.001).ConclusionThe predictors of mortality identified in a Malaysian BICU were TBSA > 20%, early SIRS, mechanical ventilation and inhalation injury which were associated with poorer survival outcome. The immunological response differs from individual patients and influenced by the severity of burn injury. Early SIRS on admission is an important predictor of death and may represent the severity of burn injury. Patients who required mechanical ventilation were associated with mortality and it is likely related to the severity of pulmonary insults sustained by individual patients. This data is important for outcome prognostication and mortality risk counselling in severely burned patients.
Clobetasol propionate 0.05% cream under occlusion with silicone dressing is equally effective and has fewer adverse effects compared to IL triamcinolone. Hence, it may be used as an alternative treatment for keloid particularly in patients with low pain threshold, needle phobia and those who prefers home-based treatment.
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