Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that is characterized by progressive loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta as well as motor impairment. Aggregation of α-synuclein in neuronal cells plays a key role in this disease. At present, therapeutics for PD provides moderate symptomatic benefits, but it is not able to delay the development of the disease. Current efforts toward the treatment of PD are to identify new drugs that slow or arrest the progressive course of PD by interfering with a disease-specific pathogenetic process in PD patients. Irisflorentin derived from the roots of Belamcanda chinensis (L.) DC. is an herb which has been used for the treatment of inflammatory disorders in traditional Chinese medicine. The purpose of the present study was to assess the potential for irisflorentin to ameliorate PD in Caenorhabditis elegans models. Our data reveal that irisflorentin prevents α-synuclein accumulation in the transgenic Caenorhabditis elegans model and also improves dopaminergic neuron degeneration, food-sensing behavior, and life-span in a 6-hydroxydopamine-induced Caenorhabditis elegans model, thus indicating its potential as a anti-parkinsonian drug candidate. Irisflorentin may exert its effects by promoting rpn-3 expression to enhance the activity of proteasomes and down-regulating egl-1 expression to block apoptosis pathways. These findings encourage further investigation on irisflorentin as a possible potent agent for PD treatment.

Introduction: Pediatric cardiac surgical mission programs are deemed as common practice, especially in developing nations funded by international non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This article presents and discusses the results and strategies implemented by this partnership, aiming at achieving the autonomy of the local center by this collaboration. Materials and Methods: A retrospective review was conducted on patients with congenital heart disease who underwent surgical intervention from the beginning of the NGO collaboration (September 2015) until November 2018 in an existing cardiac center. In between those visits, any congenital heart disease patient with Risk Adjustment Congenital Heart Surgery (RACHS)-1 Category 1–3 would be discussed in a local multi-disciplinary meeting with regards to the feasibility of the surgery being performed by the local members. Results: A total of 60 operations were performed during the trips. Throughout the visit, 46% (28) of the operations were performed by the local surgeon, with or without assistance from the visiting surgeon. Between September 2015 and November 2018, 27 cases were also performed by the local team independently. For the 27 cases performed by the local team independently, the median age of the patient was 42 days (ranging from 14 days to 20 years old), with median body weight of 3.2 kg (ranging from 2.8 to 64 kg). Conclusion: Humanitarian pediatric cardiac surgical missions are safe to be done for the population in need. In order to achieve autonomy, continuous efforts by both teams are crucial, as the cooperation by the two parties ensures that the objectives are achieved.

The incidence of doubly committed lesions is high in our experience, frequently associated with AoVR and other associated malformation. Early detection is crucial to prevent further progression of the disease. Patch closure remains the gold standard in management, not least since it allows simultaneous repair of associated intracardiac defects.