The Efficacy and Safety of Sertaconazole Cream (2 %) in Diaper Dermatitis Candidiasis.
The Efficacy and Safety of Sertaconazole Cream (2 %) in Diaper Dermatitis Candidiasis.
Mycopathologia. 2013 Apr 2;
Bonifaz A, Tirado-Sánchez A, Graniel MJ, Mena C, Valencia A, Ponce-Olivera RM
AIM: Diaper dermatitis (DD) is an inflammatory irritating condition that is common in infants. Most cases are associated with the yeast colonization of Candida or diaper dermatitis candidiasis (DDC), and therefore, the signs and symptoms improve with antimycotic treatment. Sertaconazole is a broad-spectrum third-generation imidazole derivative that is effective and safe for the treatment for superficial mycoses, such as tineas, candidiasis, and pityriasis versicolor. Our goal was to assess the efficacy and safety of sertaconazole cream (2 %) in DDC. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-seven patients with clinical and mycological diagnosis of DDC were enrolled and treated with 2 daily applications for 14 days and were followed-up for 2 further weeks. RESULTS: Three etiologic agents were isolated: Candida albicans in 88.8 %, Candida parapsilosis in 7.3 %, and Candida glabrata in 3.2 %. There was an average symptom reduction from 7.1 to 3.2 in the middle of treatment and to 1.2 and 0.4 units at the end of treatment and follow-up, respectively. The treatment evaluation at the end of the follow-up period showed a total clinical and mycological cure in 88.8 %, improvement in 3.7 %, and failure in 7.4 %. There was side effect (3.7 %) of skin irritation, but the drug was not discontinued. CONCLUSIONS: Based on its safety and effectiveness, sertaconazole cream may be considered a new alternative for DDC treatment. HubMed – drug
Labeled stem cells as disease models and in drug discovery.
Methods Mol Biol. 2013; 997: 239-51
Ellerström C, Strehl R, Hyllner J
Human pluripotent stem cells provide unique possibilities for in vitro studies of human cells in basic research, disease modeling as well as in industrial applications. By introducing relevant genome engineering technology, and thereby creating, for example, reporter cell lines, one will facilitate and improve safety pharmacology, toxicity testing, and can help the scientists to better understand pathological processes in humans. This review discusses how the merger of these two fields, human pluripotent stem cells and genome engineering, form extremely powerful tools and how they have been implemented already within the scientific community. In sharp contrast to immortalized human cell lines, which are both easy to expand and very simple to transfect, the genetically modified pluripotent stem cell line can be directed to a specific cell lineage and provide the user with highly relevant information. We highlight some of the challenges the field had to solve and how new technology advancements has removed the early bottlenecks. HubMed – drug
Highly efficient directed differentiation of human induced pluripotent stem cells into cardiomyocytes.
Methods Mol Biol. 2013; 997: 149-61
Burridge PW, Zambidis ET
Human-induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-derived cardiomyocytes are a novel source of cells for patient-specific cardiotoxicity drug testing, drug discovery, disease modeling, and regenerative medicine. We describe a versatile and cost-effective protocol for in vitro cardiac differentiation that is effective for a wide variety of hiPSC and human embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines. This highly optimized protocol produces contracting human embryoid bodies (hEB) with a near total efficiency of 94.7 ?± ?2.4% in less than 9 days, and minimizes the variability in cardiac differentiation commonly observed between various hiPSC and hESC lines. The contracting hEB derived using these methods contain high percentages of pure functional cardiomyocytes, highly reproducible electrophysiological profiles, and pharmacologic responsiveness to known cardioactive drugs. HubMed – drug
Directed differentiation of pluripotent stem cells to functional hepatocytes.
Methods Mol Biol. 2013; 997: 141-7
Roelandt P, Vanhove J, Verfaillie C
Differentiation of human stem cells to hepatocytes is crucial for industrial applications as well as to develop new therapeutic strategies for liver disease. The protocol described here, using sequentially growth factors known to play a role in liver embryonic development, efficiently differentiates human embryonic stem cells (hESC) as well as human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC) to hepatocytes by directing them through defined embryonic intermediates, namely, mesendoderm/definitive endoderm and hepatoblast and hepatocyte phenotype. After 28 days, the final differentiated progeny is a mixture of cells, comprising cells with characteristics of hepatoblasts and a smaller cell fraction with morphological and phenotypical features of mature hepatocytes. An extensive functional characterization of the stem cell progeny should be used to confirm that differentiated cells display functional characteristics of mature hepatocytes including albumin secretion, glycogen storage, and several detoxifying functions such as urea production, bilirubin conjugation, glutathione S-transferase activity, cytochrome activity and drug transporter activity. HubMed – drug