313 research outputs found
Middle ear implants
No full textHearing loss is becoming more common in the society living in cities with lot of background noise around, and frequent use of gadgets like mobile phones, MP3s, and IPods are adding to the problem. The loss may involve the conductive or perceptive pathway. Majority of the patients with conductive hearing loss will revert back to normal hearing levels with medical and/or surgical treatment. However, in sensorineural hearing loss, many factors are involved in the management. Though traditionally hearing aids in various forms are the most commonly used modality in managing these patients, there are some drawbacks associated with them. Implantable middle ear amplifiers represent the most recent breakthrough in the management of hearing loss. Middle ear implants are surgically implanted electronic devices that aim to correct hearing loss by stimulating the ossicular chain or middle ear. Of late, they are also being used in the management of congenital conductive hearing loss and certain cases of chronic otitis media with residual hearing loss. The article aims to provide general information about the technology, indications and contraindications, selection of candidates, available systems, and advantages of middle ear implants. (MEI
Ectopic premolar tooth in the maxillary sinus: A case report and review of literature
No full textEctopic eruption of teeth in non-dental sites is a rare phenomenon and such cases have been reported to occur in the nasal cavity, chin, maxillary sinus, mandible, palate, and orbital cavity. Ectopic tooth eruptions in maxillary sinus are usually asymptomatic or may present with recurrent sinusitis. Majority are found incidentally during routine clinical or radiological investigation. We present a case of an ectopic upper second premolar tooth that caused chronic purulent sinusitis in relation to the right maxillary sinus. The tooth was attached to the posterior wall of the sinus without an associated dentigerous cyst. The case was innovatively managed by endoscopic approach through sublabial route
Mobile high-throughput phenotyping using watershed segmentation algorithm
No full textMaster of ScienceDepartment of Computing and Information SciencesMitchell L. NeilsenThis research is a part of BREAD PHENO, a PhenoApps BREAD project at K-State which combines contemporary advances in image processing and machine vision to deliver transformative mobile applications through established breeder networks. In this platform, novel image analysis segmentation algorithms are being developed to model and extract plant phenotypes. As a part of this research, the traditional Watershed segmentation algorithm has been extended and the primary goal is to accurately count and characterize the seeds in an image. The new approach can be used to characterize a wide variety of crops. Further, this algorithm is migrated into Android making use of the Android APIs and the first ever user-friendly Android application implementing the extended Watershed algorithm has been developed for Mobile field-based high-throughput phenotyping (HTP)
On the aberration–retardation effects in pulsars
No full textThe magnetospheric locations of pulsar radio emission region are not well known. The actual form of the so-called radius-to-frequency mapping should be reflected in the aberration-retardation (A/R) effects that shift and/or delay the photons depending on the emission height in the magnetosphere. Recent studies suggest that in a handful of pulsars the A/R effect can be discerned with respect to the peak of the central core emission region. To verify these effects in an ensemble of pulsars, we launched a project analysing multifrequency total intensity pulsar profiles obtained from the new observations from the Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope (GMRT), Arecibo Observatory (AO) and archival European Pulsar Network (EPN) data. For all these profiles, we measure the shift of the outer cone components with respect to the core component, which is necessary for establishing the A/R effect. Within our sample of 23 pulsars, seven show the A/R effects, 12 of them (doubtful cases) show a tendency towards this effect, while the remaining four are obvious counterexamples. The counterexamples and doubtful cases may arise from uncertainties in the determination of the location of the meridional plane and/or the core emission component. Hence, it appears that the A/R effects are likely to operate in most pulsars from our sample. We conclude that in cases where those effects are present the core emission has to originate below the conal emission region
A brief profile of laryngeal lesions undergoing microlaryngeal surgery by telescopic method
No full textBACKGROUND: Telescopic-assisted Microlaryngeal surgery (MLS), also known as video laryngoscopic surgery, is increasingly becoming popular because of the ease of the technicalities. Magnification and the improved delicacy of instrumentation help us in differentiating the extent of the lesion and performing a precise cutting out.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: Forty-seven patients presented to our tertiary health center and underwent MLS by the telescopic method are taken into consideration for the present study.
RESULTS: Among 47 patients who underwent surgery by telescopic method, males were predominant, and majority were in the 51–60 years of age group. A total of 19 were benign, 8 were premalignant, and 20 were malignant. Majority of the cases involved the middle third of the vocal cord and only two cases involved the posterior third of the vocal cord. All benign lesions were subjected to speech therapy, and malignant lesions were immediately sent for radiotherapy and no recurrence was noted on regular follow-up.
DISCUSSION: It is easy to expose the larynx and we have never faced any difficulty in exposure of the vocal cord lesion. Delineation of the tissue in terms of morphology, site of lesion, and vascularity was very precise. Instrumentation was unimpeded, and documentation was easy.
CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that the telescopic-assisted MLS is the better modality to deal with the lesions of vocal cords
Abstract 4764: Activation of estrogen receptor beta signaling reduces stemness and promotes differentiation of glioma stem cells
No full textAbstract
Glioblastoma (GBM) are the most common and deadliest tumors of the central nervous system. GBM have poor prognosis due to tumor recurrence and resistance to current therapies. Glioma Stem Cells (GSCs) are implicated in the tumor initiation and therapy resistance of GBM. Agents that can specifically reduce stemness of GSCs are urgently needed for the effective treatment of GBM. Estrogen play a crucial role during brain development, differentiation and in neuroprotection. However, its role in promoting differentiation of GSCs remain unknown. Estrogen effects are mediated by two estrogen receptors (ESR1 and ESR2) and ESR2 functions as a tissue-specific tumor suppressor. Our recent studies discovered that GSCs preferably express ESR2 with low or undetectable levels of ESR1. The objective of this study is to test whether ESR2 agonists modulate stemness of GSCs and to determine their mechanism(s) of action. We have tested the hypothesis using GSCs isolated from established and patient derived GBM cells using stem cell markers CD133 and CD15. Knockout of ESR2 using CRISPR/Cas9 system increased the CD133 positive GSCs and overexpression of ESR2 reduces the CD133-positive population in GBM cells. Treatment of GSCs with ESR2 agonists (Liquiritigenin and LY500307) significantly inhibited the neurosphere formation, self-renewal ability and proliferation. Further ESR2 agonist treatment resulted in the loss of stemness and induction of differentiation and apoptosis of GSCs. Western blot analysis and RT-qPCR analysis revealed reduced expression of stemness markers such as Nestin and Sox-2 and increased expression of differentiation markers GFAP and tuj-1 in GSCs. RNA sequencing analysis of ESR2 agonist treated and untreated GSCs revealed modulation of pathways related to apoptosis, cell cycle, stemness and differentiation. Further, ESR2 agonists treatment significantly reduced the GSCs mediated tumor growth in orthotopic models and improved the mice overall survival. Immunohistochemical studies demonstrated that ESR2 agonists reduces the expression of proliferation of marker Ki67 and induced the apoptosis in tumors. Together, our results established ESR2 agonists liquiritigenin and LY500307 as novel therapeutic agents for elimination of GSCs. Since ESR2 agonists has good blood-brain barrier permeability and less neuronal toxicity, they can be readily transferred to clinical use with current radiation and chemotherapies, thereby providing an additional tool for enhancing survival in GBM patients.
Citation Format: Gangadhara Reddy Sareddy, Jinyou Liu, Suryavathi Viswanadhapalli, Rajeshwar R. Tekmal, Andrew Brenner, Ratna K. Vadlamudi. Activation of estrogen receptor beta signaling reduces stemness and promotes differentiation of glioma stem cells [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 4764. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-4764</jats:p
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