The article by He and colleagues, ‘‘Adverse Events Following Acupuncture: A Systematic Review of the Chinese Literature for the Years 1956–2010’’ is an important and timely contribution. In this commentary, the article is reviewed and issues are highlighted about how to interpret and contextualize the results of their study. While their review has been well performed, certain areas have been ...

Objectives Treatment of oral mucositis (OM) is challenging. In order to develop and test useful treatment approaches, the development of reliable, reproducible and simpler methods than are currently available for assessment of OM is important. A Patient-Reported Oral Mucositis Symptom (PROMS) scale was assessed in patients with head and neck cancer to determine if the patient-reported OM experience, ...

Metallo- -lactamases (MBLs) have rapidly disseminated worldwide among clinically important Gram-negative bacteria and have challenged the therapeutic use of -lactam antibiotics, particularly carbapenems. The blaGIM-1 gene, encoding one such enzyme, was first discovered in a Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolate from 2002 and has more recently been reported in Enterobacteriaceae. Here, we present crystal ...

Background The association of reproductive factors with hormone receptor (HR)-negative breast tumors remains uncertain. Methods Within the EPIC cohort, Cox proportional hazards models were used to describe the relationships of reproductive factors (menarcheal age, time between menarche and first pregnancy, parity, number of children, age at first and last pregnancies, time since last full-term ...

Background: Obesity and diabetes mellitus (DM) have been linked to increased risk of infections, and Staphylococcus aureus nasal colonization is a major risk factor for developing infections with the microbe. We therefore sought to find whether body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) could be associated with S. aureus colonization independent of DM. Methodology: S. aureus colonization ...

Our genome is assembled into and array of highly dynamic nucleosome structures allowing spatial and temporal access to DNA. The nucleosomes are subject to a wide array of post-translational modifications, altering the DNAhistone interaction and serving as docking sites for proteins exhibiting effector or “reader” modules. The nuclear proteins SPBP and RAI1 are composed of several putative “reader” ...

Background: In a situation where national censuses do not record information on ethnicity, studies of the indigenous Sámi people’s health and living conditions tend to use varying Sámi inclusion criteria and categorizations. Consequently, the basis on which Sámi study participants are included and categorized when Sámi health and living conditions are explored and compared differs. This may influence ...

Background: Mitogen-activated protein kinase-activated protein kinase 5 (MK5) is involved in one of the major signaling pathways in cells, the mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway. MK5 was discovered in 1998 by the groups of Houng Ni and Ligou New, and was found to be highly conserved throughout the vertebrates. Studies, both in vivo and in vitro, have shown that it is implicated in tumor ...

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a safe and effective method currently used in the treatment of skin cancer. In ALA-based PDT, 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA), or ALA esters, are used as pro-drugs to induce the formation of the potent photosensitizer protoporphyrin IX (PpIX). Activation of PpIX by light causes the formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and toxic responses. Studies have indicated that ...

Background: Neuroblastoma (NB) tumours are commonly divided into three cytogenetic subgroups. However, by unsupervised principal components analysis of gene expression profiles we recently identified four distinct subgroups, r1-r4. In the current study we characterized these different subgroups in more detail, with a specific focus on the fourth divergent tumour subgroup (r4). Methods: Expression ...