J Formos Med Assoc
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Alveolar bone loss following peri-implantitis remains a clinical challenge. We aimed to design a novel bioactive dental implant to accommodate the large bone defect caused by removal of previously failed implant. ⋯ The novel porous structured Bio-ActiveITRI dental implants may have a great potential for the prosthetic reconstruction where bone support is compromised after removal of a previously failed implant.
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Corneal avascularity is critical for corneal transparency; therefore, a tailored process has been presumed to minimize corneal neovascularization (NV). In most cell types, the transcription of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is up-regulated, and the stability of VEGF mRNA is sustained by human antigen R (HuR) during hypoxia; however, whether such response applies to corneal epithelial cells is unclear. ⋯ Our study revealed a distinct regulation of VEGF via HuR in HCECs following hypoxia, which likely contributes to minimizing corneal NV and/or maintenance of corneal avascularity.
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Evidence regarding the impact of early palliative family conferences (PFCs) and decision to withdraw life-sustaining treatment (DTW) on healthcare costs in an intensive care unit (ICU) setting is inconsistent. ⋯ Palliative family conferences held within 7 days after ICU admission with decisions to withdraw life-sustaining treatments significantly lowered healthcare costs.
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The percentage of female medical students has been significant elevating worldwide. The demographic shift is expected to influence the proportion of male versus female surgeons soon. The objective of this study was to evaluate the gender differences in the acquisition of robotic suturing skills. ⋯ Female medical students performed better in the VR task of suture spongy and achieved more stitches than male students with the da Vinci system despite no difference in robotic suture quality by gender. Because this is the first study comparing gender performance on a robotic platform, further studies are required to investigate if different training approaches will affect the performance by gender.
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This study sought to elucidate the mechanism by which losartan inhibits blood pressure (BP) elevation in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs). ⋯ The study results showed that the reduction of BP elevation by losartan in SHRs occurs through the suppression of LARG expression and MYPT-1 phosphorylation in vascular smooth muscle cells.