sighted work of Philip S Hench, who together with Edward C Kendall and Tadeus Reichstein introduced glucocorticoids (GCs) into clinical medicine. Since the 1990s, more than 40 years after adding GC to the therapeutic armamentarium, important work has been carried out to understand GC action. Th ere were three major pathways of discoveries between 1990 and today. Firstly, the groups of George Ch...

We read with great interest the recent article in CHEST (October 2009) 1 by Watz and colleagues showing an independent association between metabolic syndrome and systemic infl ammatory markers in chronic bronchitis and patients with COPD. The authors also demonstrate that the prevalence of metabolic syndrome does not increase for increasing COPD severity, as expressed by the Global Initiative f...

Cancer commonly arises at the sites of chronic infl ammation and infection. Although this association has long been recognized, the reason has remained unclear. Within the gastrointestinal tract, there are many examples of infl ammatory conditions associated with cancer, and these include refl ux disease and Barrett’s adenocarcinoma of the esophagus, Helicobacter infection and gastric cancer, i...

Odontogenic cysts are the most commonly occurring cysts in the jaws and are the reason for the radiolucent appearances. The radicular cyst is a type of an infl ammatory cyst, caused due to pulpal necrosis followed by trauma or caries, with an associated infl ammatory response at the periapical region. Many a times it is diffi cult to diff erentiate from other bony lesions and it poses diagnosti...

| January 2014 | 81 Considering the effect of hyperglycemia causing negative eff ect on bone formation and infl ammatory eff ects in T2DM patients, which may result in reduced osseointegration and higher failure rate of dental implants, we hypothesize that RSV may reduce dental implant failure rate by having stimulating bone formation and anti-infl ammatory eff ects. It seems that induction of ...

Gerontologists have defi ned frailty as a multi-dimensional syndrome characterized by the loss of physical and cognitive reserve that leads to increased vulnerability to adverse events [1]. Frailty overlaps and extends beyond disability (functional limitation) and comorbidity (coexistence of two diseases), and acknowledges that patients can be disabled and/or have comorbidities without being fr...

W ith increasing curiosity into more holistic approaches to disease prevention and treatment, some researchers are rediscovering how an ancient spice may help treat and prevent many types of cancer. Curcumin, or diferuloylmethane, is a yellow-orange powder that is the principal ingredient in turmeric (Curcuma longa), the Indian spice popularly known as curry. and other parts of Asia and tropica...

Interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) mediate the development of numerous infl ammatory lung diseases. Since IL-1β is typically activated in situations where TNF-α is produced, it was hypothesized that IL-1β alters TNF-α–induced proinfl ammatory epithelial cell function by altering TNF receptor shedding and surface abundance. In this study, the impact of IL-1β on TNF-α–medi...

patients with more advanced renal failure. However, as detected in previous studies [5–7] , CRP levels were not normally distributed, suggesting the presence of a mixed population of different subgroups of patients: patients with high and patients with normal CRP values despite a similar creatinine clearance. The results suggest that reduced renal function by itself could not be fully responsib...