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Ovarian tissue cryopreservation is a female fertility preservation technique that presents major challenges for the maintenance of follicular viability after transplantation. The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the application of L-Mesitran Soft ® , a product containing 40% medical grade honey (MGH), with other strategies to improve ovarian grafts' viability. For this purpose, bovine ovarian tissue was vitrified, warmed and randomly assigned to culture groups: (1) control, (2) MGH 0.2% in vitro, (3) MGH in vivo (direct application in the xenotransplantation), (4) vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF 50 ng/mL) and (5) vitamin D (100 Nm), during a 48 h period. A sixth group (6) of fragments was thawed on transplantation day and was not cultured. The tissue was xenotransplanted into immunodeficient (Rowett nude homozygous) ovariectomized rats. Grafts were analyzed 48 h after culture, and 7 and 28 days after transplantation. The tissue was subjected to histological and immunohistochemical analysis. Treatments using MGH showed the highest angiogenic and cell proliferation stimulation, with cellular apoptosis, within a healthy cellular turnover pathway. In conclusion, MGH should be considered as a potentially effective and less expensive strategy to improve ovarian tissue transplantation.

Rheumatic diseases (RD) self-management interventions are designed to improve health-related quality of life, health care utilization, and perceived self-efficacy. Despite these demonstrated good results, there are several issues that hinder or render less appealing these interventions. One economically and socially viable solution is exploiting the potential of Smartphone technology. This potential comes from Smartphones pervasive presence in actual society, combined with the advantages of being personal, intuitive, and computationally powerful, with capability to support applications and assist its user throughout different activities of daily living and environments persistently. With their global acceptance increasing quickly, there is a great opportunity for mobile health in using Smartphone applications for RD self-management. Besides the potential of such applications, research on the development and evaluation of such applications is in the early stages. Therefore, it is important to foresee its future applicability in order to meet the needs of the twenty-first century.

Central nervous system involvement in a patient with primary infection with Varicella zoster virus is rare, especially in the immunocompetent adult. In particular, isolated optic neuritis has been described in a small number of cases. The authors present a case of optic neuritis in an immunocompetent patient. A 28-year-old woman presented to the emergency room with a history of headaches during the previous week, without visual symptoms. The examination was unremarkable, except for a rash suggestive of chickenpox and hyperemic and edematous optic disc, bilaterally. Visual acuity and neurological examination were normal. Two days later, she complained of pain on eye movement and decreased visual acuity, which was 20/32 in her right eye and 20/60 in her left eye. Four days after admission, her visual acuity started to improve, and two months later, she had 20/20 visual acuity in both eyes. To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of an immunocompetent adult in which a Varicella zoster virus associated optic neuritis presented with fundoscopic changes before decreased visual acuity. This suggests that this condition may be underdiagnosed in asymptomatic patients.