Flávia Maria de Moraes Ramos

Evaluation of radioprotective effect of carnosine (beta- alanyl-1- histidine) on the wound healing in rats

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the radioprotective effect of carnosine (beta- alanyl-1-histidine) on the wound healing in rats. Therefore, 48 male rats were submitted to a surgical procedure to perform a rectangular wound in the anterior-dorsal region. The animals were divided into 4 experimental groups randomly chosen: control; irradiated; carnosine irradiated and carnosine group. The irradiated and carnosine irradiated group were exposed to a dose (6Gy) of gamma irradiation, in the whole body, 72 hours after surgery. The carnosine and carnosine irradiated groups, in addition to the surgical procedure and the irradiation, received two doses of carnosine aqueous solution, the first one being injected 48 hours after surgery, and the second one 1 hour and 30 minutes before irradiation. The tissue repair of the 4 groups was evaluated at 4, 7, 14, and 21 days after inflicting the wound, by morphological, histochemical and histophysical methods. At all examined periods, it could be observed that the animals from the carnosine irradiated group presented a better developed granulation tissue than the irradiated group and closely similar to that of the control group. Thus, under the experimental conditions used, it was possible to conclude that carnosine is an effective radioprotective substance.

Central haemangioma of the mandible in a 7-year old child.

Central haemangioma of the jaws is rare and presents as a bony swelling, slow-growing, painful or as an asymptomatic lesion that may cause facial asymmetry 1 . Radiographic features include an osteolytic and multilocular lesion with poorly defined and irregular margins 2 . Because both clinical and radiographic features are not pathognomonics, careful intervention is necessary, avoiding notable and uncontrollable haemorrhage. The aim of this report was to describe an interesting case of mandible haemangioma in a child.

Avaliação do espaço articular em repouso de pacientes sintomáticos e assintomáticos de desordens temporomandibulares

A contribuicao da radiologia para o diagnostico das alteracoes da articulacao temporomandibular (ATM) baseia-se no desenvolvimento de tecnicas para se obter uma visao mais detalhada das estruturas anatomicas e interpretacao das imagens correspondentes aos espacos e posicionamentos condilares. A posicao fisiologica mandibular de repouso e a avaliacao dos espacos articulares sao importantes no equilibrio postural crânio-mandibular. O objetivo neste estudo foi avaliar, na posicao de repouso, os espacos articulares em pacientes sintomaticos e assintomaticos de desordens temporomandibulares, utilizando a tomografia convencional corrgida na incidencia frontal e sagital com cortes na porcao central do condilo. A posicao da postura habitual do segmento superior foi um importante dado observado por ser considerado um fator modificador da posicao de repouso mandibular. Foram selecionados 67 pacientes dos quais 29 eram assintomaticos e 38 clinicamente examinados como sintomaticos. Os dados obtidos foram analisados estatisticamente pelo teste t de Student e de Tukey. Pode-se concluir que nao houve diferenca entre os lados do mesmo paciente e entre pacientes sintomaticos e assintomaticos, sendo somente estatisticamente significante a diferenca entre os sexos, dos quais o masculino apresentou maiores dimensoes. Estes resultados sugerem que, biologicamente o sexo masculino e possivelmente mais protegido dos comprometimentos articulares e demonstram que, com a metodologia aplicada, a posicao de repouso mandibular e perfeitamente reproduzivel e mensuravel embora seja considerada uma posicao intermediaria e aparentemente instavel.