BACKGROUND Public Health Centers (PHCs) throughout Japan have been playing a role in preventing HIV in Japan. The number of HIV seropositive persons and AIDS patients is increasing from year to year in Japan. METHODS A survey regarding the HIV antibody test was sent out to 594 PHCs between January 1997 and December 2001. The response rate was 73.9%. In order to assess the HIV testing system a...

The essence of tissue engineering is the fabrication of autologous cells or induced stem cells in naturally derived or synthetic scaffolds to form specific tissues. Polymer is thought as an appealing source of cell-seeded scaffold owing to the diversity of its physicochemical property and can be electrospun into nano-size to mimic natural structure. Poly (L-lactic acid) (PLLA) and poly (ε-capro...

A novel technique to introduce free amino groups onto polyester scaffolds via aminolyzing the ester groups with diamine has been developed recently. Positively charged chitosan was then deposited onto the aminolyzed poly(l-lactic acid) (PLLA) membrane surface in a layer-by-layer assembly manner using poly(styrene sulfonate, sodium salt) (PSS) as a negatively charged polyelectrolyte. The layer-b...

A simple and novel method--in the form of solution spraying--was developed to fabricate biodegradable, porous poly(L-lactic acid) (PLLA) particulates for scaffold. PLLA pellets were dissolved in an organic solvent. Then, 5 % PLLA-dioxane solution was sprayed using an air-assisted atomizer with a nozzle diameter of 2.5 mm at an air flow rate of 15 L/min. After the sprayed solution solidified in ...

In this study we investigate the formation of protein-resistant polymer surfaces, such as aliphatic polyesters, through the deposition of self-assemblies of amphiphilic poly(l-lactide)-b-poly(ethylene oxide), PLLA-b-PEO, copolymers as stable nanoparticles with a kinetically frozen PLLA core on model PLLA surfaces. The length of the PEO chains in the corona was tuned to achieve polymer brushes c...

BACKGROUND Dental implants have become increasingly common for the management of missing teeth. However, peri-implant infection remains a problem, is usually difficult to treat, and may lead eventually to dental implant failure. The aim of this study was to fabricate a novel antibacterial coating containing a halogenated furanone compound, ie, (Z-)-4-bromo-5-(bromomethylene)-2(5H)-furanone (BBF...

Tamilnadu state of India witnessed an increasing trend of institutional deliveries since the beginning of 1990s, with decline of domiciliary deliveries to nearly zero now. Among the institutional deliveries, a shift has been observed since 2006 wherein primary health centres (PHC) have shown a four-fold increase in the number of deliveries while other public and private health facilities showed...

BACKGROUND Although metallic stents are effective in preventing acute occlusion and reducing late restenosis after coronary angioplasty, many concerns still remain. Compared with metallic stents, poly-l-lactic acid (PLLA) stents are biodegradable and can deliver drugs locally. The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility, safety, and efficacy of the PLLA stent. METHODS AND RESULTS Fi...

BACKGROUND Several reports of chloroquine treatment failure and resistance in Plasmodium vivax malaria from Southeast Asian countries have been published. Present study was undertaken to assess the efficacy of chloroquine-primaquine (CQ-PQ) combined regimen for the treatment of P. vivax malaria patients who were catered by the selected primary health centres (PHCs) of Udupi taluk, Udupi distric...