Objectives: To evaluate the levels of some parameters related to bone metabolism during pregnancy i.e. total calcium (CA), 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (Vit.D), parathormone hormone (PTH), phosphorous, osteocalcin, total acid phosphatase and its tartrate resistant isoform (TrACP), total alkaline phosphatase (TALP) and its isoenzmes activities, total protein, albumin, globulin in sera and haemoglobin in blood in a group of egyptian pregnant women who are living in cairo and under reasonable medical care.
Cases: The study was conducted on 33 healthy pregnant women (age range from 20 to 38 years) and 16 healthy non-pregnant women within the same age range to serve as controls. Twenty blood samples were collected from the pregnant women at the end of first trimester of pregnancy (Week-11), twenty four were collected at the end of third trimester (Week-38).
Results: Regarding the osteoblastic activity, the T.ALP was significantly increased due to placental T.ALP and to a lesser degree to bone ALP, while osteocalcin levels. Showed a non significant increment in the 1st and 2nd trimesters of pregnancy with significant increase in the 3rd trimester of pregnancy .concerning the osteoclastic activity, The TrACP isoform decreased significantly in the 2nd trimester of pregnancy, Then returned to the normal values of non-pregnant control levels. Women in the last trimester of pregnancy have higher estrogen level than any other time of life. Although, estrogens at physiologic concentration inhibit osteoclastic activity, hight estrogen concentration increases osteoclastic activity.
As regards the factors that responsible for calcium homeostasis, significant decrease in serum intact PTH was concurrent with significant increase in Vit.D. The total serum calcium level was significantly decreased through the pregnancy, while the ionized calcium did not change, and the serum phosphorus was highly significantly increased.
Conclusion: From these results it has been concluded that, the pregnancy imposes major changes in the mother's nutritional requirement and causes physiological alternation in maternal bone metabolism. Minimal changes affecting the bone turnover were demonstrated among egyptian women throughout pregnancy due to the nutritional statue of the women and thier supplementation with Ca and/or Vit.D. Also,the changes in the haemodynamic parameters of the mother may be due to heamodilution that occur during pregnancy. The obtained patterns showed that the egyptian women who are living in urban areas (e.g. cairo), and under reasonable medical care are in good health compared to other communities in which the nutritional status and the poor medical care are the main reasons for the dramatic changes in the bone metabolism.

The effects of the non-selective beta-blocker propranolol (CAS 525-66-6) and the cardioselective drug atenolol (CAS 29122-68-7) on serum glucose, insulin levels and some serum lipid components, were compared in normal and diabetic rats receiving glibenclamide. The two beta-blockers, when administered concurrently with glibenclamide in normal rats, exerted a significant hypoglycemic effect (p < 0.01), while in diabetic rats the two drugs caused a more significant decrease (p < 0.001 and p < 0.01, resp.). Serum insulin levels were mainly unaffected by the two beta-blockers. Propranolol was found to exhibit a hypolipidemic effect in diabetic rats when administered alone or in combination with glibenclamide. In comparison atenolol, when used alone, exerted a significant increase in triglycerides and total lipid levels (p < 0.05) in normal rats. This effect was masked when atenolol was administered concurrently with glibenclamide, but a hypercholesterolemic effect (p < 0.01) was noticed. Paradoxically in diabetic rats, atenolol caused a significant decrease (p < 0.05) in triglycerides level, while its combined use with glibenclamide showed no effect.

Although animal research ethics committees (AREC) are
well established in Western
countries this field is
weakly developed and its concept is poorly understood
in the Middle East and North Africa region. Our
main objective was to establish the first animal ethics committee to introduce the concept and
requirements of ethical approaches in dealing with experimental animal models in Egypt.
To achieve this we established our standard oper
ating producers (SOP) according to international
guidelines. Our SOP constituted the AREC responsi
bilities, committee member
s selection, evaluation
procedures emphasizing the regional cultures, etc. T
he challenges encountered by the committee were
diverse such as the absence of laws that control the
use of animal models in scientific research, lack of
guidelines (protocols for animal subjects in research) and mandatory ethical approval for any
experimental animal research. To ov
ercome the challenges, high univer
sity authorities were approached
to approve the establishment of an AREC committee.
Moreover, workshops were instigated in different
universities to: 1) emphasize the legal requirement
of animal research ethics approval; 2) describe the
guidelines how ethical evaluation of scie
ntific proposal will be carried out; 3)
facilitate interaction with best
practices and research experts and 4) teach young rese
arches how to write protocol involving the use of
animal subjects in research. In three months, we were able to conduct three workshops after each
workshop questionnaire and evaluation was obtained to overcome weak points.

The effect of methanol on some of the lipid components in serum was studied in rats. Methanol was administered by stomach tube in doses of 2 and 6 ml/kg b.wt daily for 21 and 6 days, respectively. Methanol was found to accumulate lipids; thus, cholesterol, phospholipids and triglycerides increased significantly. Concurrently, modification of the lipoid content of organs has been considered. It was concluded that methanol and not only formate, is toxic to rats, inspite of the alleged difference in routes of its metabolism in primates and rodents.

Glucose tolerance (GT), peripheral insulin activity (A) and beta cell function (CIR) were improved on prolonged chloroquine administration to normal male rats, while the acute effects comprised hyperinsulinaemia with unaltered blood glucose levels. This study explains some of the seemingly conflicting results due to chloroquine treatment and concludes that the drug is not damaging to glucose homeostasis in long term treatment.

Seven samples of the system Cu1-x Cd x Fe 2O4 were prepared by thermal decomposition of mixed metal oxalates with x = 0.0, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 0.9 and 1.0. The formation of the ferrispinel was studied by XRD, FT-IR, Mössbauer spectroscopy, electrical conductivity and magnetic susceptibility measurements. XRD showed single cubic spinel phase for all the samples except for CuFe2O4 sample which shows a tetragonal structure. An increase in the lattice parameter of the ferrispinel was observed with increasing the cadmium content. The temperature variation of ac conductivity showed four definite regions with three transitions which attribute to the change in the conduction mechanism with increasing temperature. Magnetic properties of the sample with x ≤ 0.5 showed a decrease in the effective magnetic moment with the increase in the cadmium content which means that the ferromagnetics are widely separated and enclosed by non-magnetic cadmium ions. A well defined hyperfine Zeeman spectrum is observed for samples with x ≥ 0.3 at room temperature and resolved into two sextets corresponding to the octahedral and tetrahedral sites. The propable ionic configuration of the system proposed is (Cd x Cu y Fe1-x-y )[Cu1-x-y Fe1+x+y ]O4. © 2005 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.

The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of the nanocarrier surface charge on brain delivery of a model hydrophilic drug via the nasal route. Anionic and cationic nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs) were prepared and optimized for their particle size and zeta potential. The optimum particles were incorporated in poloxamer in situ gels and their in vivo behavior was studied in the plasma and brain after administration to rats. Optimum anionic and cationic NLCs of size <200 nm and absolute zeta potential value of ≈34 mV were obtained. Toxicity study revealed mild to moderate reversible inflammation of the nasal epithelium in rats treated with the anionic NLCs (A7), and destruction of the lining mucosal nasal epithelium in rats treated with the cationic NLCs (C7L). The absolute bioavailability of both drug loaded anionic and cationic NLCs in situ gels was enhanced compared to that of the intranasal solution (IN) of the drug with values of 44% and 77.3%, respectively. Cationic NLCs in situ gel showed a non significant higher Cmax (maximum concentration) in the brain compared to the anionic NLCs in situ gel. Anionic NLCs in situ gel gave highest drug targeting efficiency in the brain (DTE%) with a value of 158.5 which is nearly 1.2 times that of the cationic NLCs in situ gel. © 2014 Elsevier B.V.

Seven samples of the system Cu1-x Cd x Fe 2O4 were prepared by thermal decomposition of mixed metal oxalates with x = 0.0, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 0.9 and 1.0. The formation of the ferrispinel was studied by XRD, FT-IR, Mössbauer spectroscopy, electrical conductivity and magnetic susceptibility measurements. XRD showed single cubic spinel phase for all the samples except for CuFe2O4 sample which shows a tetragonal structure. An increase in the lattice parameter of the ferrispinel was observed with increasing the cadmium content. The temperature variation of ac conductivity showed four definite regions with three transitions which attribute to the change in the conduction mechanism with increasing temperature. Magnetic properties of the sample with x ≤ 0.5 showed a decrease in the effective magnetic moment with the increase in the cadmium content which means that the ferromagnetics are widely separated and enclosed by non-magnetic cadmium ions. A well defined hyperfine Zeeman spectrum is observed for samples with x ≥ 0.3 at room temperature and resolved into two sextets corresponding to the octahedral and tetrahedral sites. The propable ionic configuration of the system proposed is (Cd x Cu y Fe1-x-y )[Cu1-x-y Fe1+x+y ]O4. © 2005 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.

Endometrial stromal sarcoma (ESS) is a rare neoplasm of uterine origin. Intracardiac metastasis from this tumor is extremely infrequent. This report describes a 24-year-old woman from Yemen who had irregular vaginal bleeding shortly after spontaneous abortion. She developed left-lower-limb swelling, diagnosed by duplex scanning and magnetic resonance imaging as deep venous thrombosis in the inferior vena cava (IVC) that extended into the iliac veins on both sides, as well as the left femoral vein and right atrium. She developed acute respiratory distress, from which she recovered after transfer to the intensive care unit. Transesophageal echocardiography showed a large mass occupying the right atrium and ventricle and another mass in the right ventricular outflow tract with areas of cavitations. The tumor appeared to come from the IVC and extended through the right atrium and right ventricle into the pulmonary artery, ending in several digit-like projections. After surgical resection of the intracardiac mass, pathologic examination revealed a low-grade ESS that was confirmed by immunohistochemistry. The patient underwent panhysterectomy and IVC debridement. Pathologic examination revealed infiltrating low-grade endometrial sarcoma invading the myometrium and left adnexa, with intravenous extension into the pelvic veins and the IVC to the right side of the heart. This case shows that despite its well-known good prognostic nature, low-grade ESS may behave as an aggressive malignancy.

The role of estrogen and its receptors in the etiology and progression of prostate cancer ( PC ) is poorly understood. In normal and malignant human prostate, estrogen receptor-a is expressed only in the stroma, whereas estrogen receptor-Beta ( ER-Beta ) is present in both normal stroma and epithelium. Because loss of ER-Beta expression is associated with prostate hyperplasia in ER-Beta null mice, this study determined patterns of ERBeta expression in hyperplastic, PIN ( prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia ) and malignant human prostate and associations with tumor progression. Formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded blocks were obtained from thirty-five patients who underwent radical prostatectomy and pelvic lymphadenectomy for prostate cancer, 15 core biopsies diagnosed as PIN and 10 TURP ( transurethral prostatic resection ) diagnosed as BPH ( benign prostatic hyperplasia ) were assessed for ER-Beta expression using immunohistochemistry. ER-Beta positivity was defined as 5% of cells demonstrating nuclear immunoreactivity. Nine ( 90% ) of the studied BPH cases showed ER-Beta positive expression where they showed 5% ER-Beta positive cells, while eight ( 53% ) of the studied 15 PIN cases were negative for ER-Beta expression. Twenty-nine ( 82.8% ) of the studied adenocarcinoma cases were negative for ERBeta expression, p<0 .0001. The loss of ER-Beta expression is associated with progression from hyperplastic prostate epithelium to PC. The ER-Beta expression is inversely proportional to PCs stage and grade. From these data we can conclude that estrogen can affect prostatic cancerogenesis and neoplastic progression through an ER-Beta mediated process in human prostate tissue. Our data also identify the need for additional studies to address the potential role of ERBeta in the regulation of prostate epithelial cell proliferation at different stages in the development of PC. Key Words:ER Beta - Prostatic hyperplasia - PIN - Prostatic carcinoma.