Osteoarthritis is the most prevalent arthritic disease and a leading cause of disability. The pathogenesis of osteoarthritis involves multiple etiologies, including variable degree of synovial inflammation. Metformin and pioglitazone could potentially reduce the levels and activity of inflammatory mediators. This may consider as a new therapeutic approach added to the current used drugs in an attempt to decrease the pain, inflammation, and improve daily activity and quality of life in patients with knee osteoarthritis.

This study designed to evaluate the clinical utility of using metformin or pioglitazone as anti-inflammatory agents in combination with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) of selective type of cyclooxygen

Background: Repeated teenage pregnancy is a major burden on the healthcare system worldwide. Objective: We aimed to compare teenagers with their first and third pregnancies and to evaluate the likelihood of neonatal complications. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed on female teenagers (aged ≤ 19 yr) with singleton pregnancies. The subjects (n = 298) were screened over 12 months. Ninety-six women were excluded, based on the exclusion criteria. The remaining subjects (n = 202) were divided into two groups: teenagers with first pregnancy (n = 96) and teenagers with third pregnancy (n = 47). The subjects were observed throughout pregnancy and delivery. The final sample size of the first and thi

The present work aimed to investigate the neuraminidase (nan1) gene expression in 32 different clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa to explore the role of the enzyme in different types of infection and might give a better understanding of host cell-pathogens interaction. In addition, the effect of monosaccharide D-mannose on neuraminidase gene expression in eight isolates was studied by utilizing a reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). The results demonstrated that the highest expression of nan1 gene was in otitis samples (208,913.81) which were significantly higher than that from other infections (P < 0.01). While, the concentrations of gene copies obtained from urin

Objective: To evaluate the functional outcomes after extended curettage and reconstruction using a combination of bone graft and bone cement (sandwich). Methodology: In this prospective case series 16 skeletally mature patients with primary giant cell tumor around the knee were included. Patients with previous surgically treated, malignant transformation, degenerative knee changes and those presenting with pathological fracture were excluded. The tumor was excised with bone graft filling space beneath the articular cartilage and a block of gel foam was placed over the cortical surface of picked bone graft. Remaining cavity was filled with polymethylmethacrylate cement (sandwich) with or without internal fixation. The func tional evaluation

In this work, a novel design for the NiO/TiO2 heterojunction solar cells is presented. Highly-pure nanopowders prepared by dc reactive magnetron sputtering technique were used to form the heterojunctions. The electrical characteristics of the proposed design were compared to those of a conventional thin film heterojunction design prepared by the same technique. A higher efficiency of 300% was achieved by the proposed design. This attempt can be considered as the first to fabricate solar cells from highly-pure nanopowders of two different semiconductors.