Over the last 120 years, few things contributed more to our understanding of immune system than the study of its behavior in the host/parasite relationship. Despite the advances though, a few questions remain, such as what drives the immune system? What are its guiding principles? If we ask these questions randomly, most will immediately answer “defend the body from external threats,” but what exactly do we defend ourselves from? How do these threats harm us? What criteria define what constitutes […]

Magnetic resonance images are useful in the study of experimental models of temporal lobe epilepsy. The manganese-enhanced MRI (MEMRI) technique is of interest since it combines the effects caused by manganese on the increased contrast in activated cell populations, when competing with calcium in synaptic transmission. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate the temporal evolution of the contrast related to manganese in the acute phase of temporal lobe epilepsy induced by systemic pilocarpine and compare it to […]

Oral anticoagulants are among the drugs with the greatest number of drug interactions. The concomitant use of several medications is a common practice in patients with cardiovascular problems, who often also present with depression; therefore, the probability of an interaction occurring between warfarin and the antidepressants is high, and may result in increased or decreased anticoagulant activity. Since the possible interactions between these two classes of drugs have been poorly explored in literature, with a risk to the patients who […]

ABSTRACT Premature ejaculation is the most frequent male sexual dysfunction, estimated to affect 20 to 30% of men at some time in their life. A Pubmed search from the year 2000 to the present was performed to retrieve publications related to management or treatment of premature ejaculation. Behavioral techniques have been the mainstay of premature ejaculation management for many years, although evidence of their short-term efficacy is limited. Topical therapies for premature ejaculation act by desensitizing the penis and do […]

ABSTRACT Evidence demonstrates the involvement of hormones in the development of inflammatory response. Inflammation evokes marked structural alterations of microvasculature, besides migration of leukocytes from microcirculation to the site of lesion. These alterations are caused primarily by release or activation of endogenous mediators, in which hormones play an integral role in this regulatory system. Binding sites for many hormones may be characterized by vascular structures and hematogenous cells involved with the inflammatory response. Quantitative alterations of inflammatory events involving the […]

ABSTRACT The discovery of the Philadelphia chromosome in 1960, and of the BCR-ABL oncogene in 1984, enabled the development in subsequent years of a targeted therapy that revolutionized the treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia, thus changing its natural history. The use of imatinib resulted in a significant improvement of the prognosis and outcome of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia. However, the occurrence of mechanisms of resistance or intolerance precludes the eradication of the disease in some of the patients. Second-generation […]

ABSTRACT The major complications after bone marrow transplant are related to opportunistic infections or to graft-versus-host disease. Today, there is a wealth of information associated with bone marrow transplantation and new treatment approaches have been proposed to overcome these complications. Behind these new therapies, such as adoptive transfer of T cells or mesenchymal stem cell infusions, there is significant basic research to support these clinical advances. Most of this knowledge has derived from the development of animal models and intense […]

ABSTRACT One of the most important objectives of genetic markers of cancer will be the possible identification of individuals at greatest risk in order to allow better management and prognosis. Many urological tumors were associated to various types of gene alterations with a great number of genes involved in the process, hindering gene therapy. This treatment uses specific techniques and one or several genes are manipulated in the laboratory in order to induce molecular alterations that may block the oncogenic […]

ABSTRACT Apoptosis or programmed cell death is a physiological process, essential for eliminating cells in excess or that are no longer necessary to the organism, acting on tissue homeostasis, although the phenomenon is also involved in pathological conditions. Apoptosis promotes activation of biochemical pathways inside cells called caspase pathway, of the proteins responsible for the cleavage of several cell substrates, leading to cell death. Antiapoptotic members of the Bcl-2 family (B cell CLL/lymphoma 2), that belong to the intrinsic route […]

ABSTRACT Markov Chains provide support for problems involving decision on uncertainties through a continuous period of time. The greater availability and access to processing power through computers allow that these models can be used more often to represent clinical structures. Markov models consider the patients in a discrete state of health, and the events represent the transition from one state to another. The possibility of modeling repetitive events and time dependence of probabilities and utilities associated permits a more accurate […]