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PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of thermotherapy on gas pain, post-operative resilience, and body temperature discomfort among patients who received laparoscopic myomectomies. METHODS: The experimental group consisted of 62 patients with thermotherapy and the control group consisted of 60 patients. Thermotherapy was applied individually to the experimental group four hours after surgery. The collected data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-tests, χ²-tests, and repeated measures of analysis of variance, using IBM SPSS Statistics version 18. RESULTS: The results showed no significant interaction effect between the group and time of measurement in gas-related pain in the experimental group. For gas-related pain, there was significant difference in right shoulder pain at 24 hours (t=-4.222, p=.000), 48 hours (t=-3.688, p=.000), 72 hours (t=-2.250, p=.028), and left at 24 hours (t=-3.727, p=.000), 48 hours (t=-4.150, p=.000), and 72 hours (t=-2.482, p=.016) and both shoulders at 24 hours (t=-2.722, p=.009) and 48 hours (t=-2.525, p=.014). There was no significant difference in epigastric pain, excluding both epigastric pain at 48 hours (t=2.908, p=.005), 72 hours (t=3.010, p=.004), but there was a significant difference in objective body temperature discomfort (t=2.895, p=.008). CONCLUSION: Thermotherapy relieved shoulder gas-related pain and objective body temperature discomfort. It needs to be developed and applied to improve post-operative discomfort in patients with laparoscopic hysterectomies.

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a neurodegenerative disease that is frequently found in athletes and those who have experienced repetitive head traumas. CTE is associated with a variety of neuropathologies, which cause cognitive and behavioral impairments in CTE patients. However, currently, CTE can only be diagnosed after death via brain autopsy, and it is challenging to distinguish it from other neurodegenerative diseases with similar clinical features. To better understand this multifaceted disease and identify metabolic differences in the postmortem brain tissues of CTE patients and control subjects, we performed ultra-high performance liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS)-based non-targeted metabolomics. Through multivariate and pathway analysis, we found that the brains of CTE patients had significant changes in the metabolites involved in astrocyte activation, phenylalanine, and tyrosine metabolism. The unique metabolic characteristics of CTE identified in this study were associated with cognitive dysfunction, amyloid-beta deposition, and neuroinflammation. Altogether, this study provided new insights into the pathogenesis of CTE and suggested appealing targets for both diagnosis and treatment for the disease.

Metabolites reflect the biochemical dynamics for the maintenance of pregnancy and parturition. UPLC-Q/TOF-MS and LC-MS/MS metabolomics were performed to identify and validate the plasma metabolomic signatures of preterm birth (PTB). We recruited pregnant women between 16 and 40 weeks 5 days gestational age at Ewha Womans Mokdong Hospital for a nested case-control study. In untargeted UPLC-Q/TOF-MS, score plots of partial least-squares discriminant analysis clearly separated the PTB group from the term birth (TB, n = 10; PTB, n = 11). Fifteen metabolites were significantly different between the two groups, as indicated by a variable importance in projection >1 and p < 0.05. Metabolic pathways involving retinol, linoleic acid, D-arginine, and D-ornithine were associated with PTB. Verification by LC-MS/MS focused on retinol metabolism (TB, n = 39; PTB, n = 20). Retinol levels were significantly reduced in PTB compared to TB, while retinal palmitate, all-trans-retinal, and 13-cis-retinoic acid (13cis-RA) significantly increased (p < 0.05). Retinol-binding protein levels were also elevated in PTB. Additionally, all-trans-retinal (AUC 0.808, 95% CI: 0.683–0.933) and 13cis-RA (AUC 0.826, 95% CI: 0.723–0.930) showed improved predictions for PTB-related retinol metabolites. This study suggests that retinoid metabolism improves the accuracy of PTB predictions and plays an important role in maintaining pregnancy and inducing early parturition.

Male pattern baldness (MPB) has been associated with dihydrotestosterone (DHT) expression. Finasteride treats MPB by inhibiting 5-alpha reductase and blocking DHT production. In this study, we aimed to identify metabolic differences in urinary metabolomics profiles between MPB patients after a one-year treatment with finasteride and healthy controls. Untargeted and targeted metabolomics profiling was performed using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS). We hypothesized that there would be changes in overall metabolite concentrations, especially steroids, in the urine of hair loss patients treated with finasteride and normal subjects. Untargeted analysis indicated differences in steroid hormone biosynthesis. Therefore, we conducted targeted profiling for steroid hormone biosynthesis to identify potential biomarkers, especially androgens and estrogens. Our study confirmed the differences in the concentration of urinary androgens and estrogens between healthy controls and MPB patients. Moreover, the effect of finasteride was confirmed by the DHT/T ratio in urine samples of MPB patients. Our metabolomics approach provided insight into the physiological alterations in MPB patients who have been treated with finasteride for a year and provided evidence for the association of finasteride and estrogen levels. Through a targeted approach, our results suggest that urinary estrogens must be studied in relation to MPB and post-finasteride syndrome.

The authors found a language error in the published article. The authors replace the Figure 1.

Alkoxyalcohols are used as solvents or preservatives in various consumer products such as wet wipes. The metabolites of alkoxyalcohols are known to be chronically toxic and carcinogenic to animals. Thus, an analytical method is needed to monitor alkoxyalcohols in wet wipes. The aim of this study was to develop a simultaneous analytical method for 14 alkoxyalcohols using headspace gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry to analyze the wet wipes. This method was developed by comparing with various headspace extraction parameters. The linear calibration curves were obtained for the method (r² > 0.995). The limit of detection of alkoxyalcohols ranged from 2 to 200 ng mL-1. The precision of the determinative method was less than 18.20% coefficient of variation both intra and inter days. The accuracy of the method ranged from 82.86% to 119.83%. (2-Methoxymethylethoxy)propanol, 2-phenoxyethanol, and 1-phenoxy-2-propanol were mainly detected in wet wipes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using column-switching liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), we developed an improved analytical method of urinary estriol glucuronides. This new method is derived predominantly from maternal and fetal precursors in pregnancy. We used in the following procedure: first, we filtered urine samples with a membrane filter. Next, we directly injected the 50 µL aliquot of urine samples onto a pre-column. Then, after activating the column-switching valve, we backflushed the loaded samples onto the C18 analytical column. Urine samples can be assayed within 20 min without any sample preparation steps. We monitored separated estriol glucuronides by negative electrospray ionization (ESI) and selected-reaction monitoring (SRM). The calibration range of estriol-3-glucuronide (E3-3G) and estriol-16-glucuronide (E3-16G) was 0.1–20 µg/mL and the linearity of the method was 0.9984 for E3-3G and 0.9987 for E3-16G. The limits of detection at a signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio of 3 were 10 ng/mL (E3-3G) and 5 ng/mL (E3-16G). The analytical recovery was over 85% and, in general, inter-day and intra-day variability for precision and accuracy were less than 10%. When applied to a pregnancy urine sample to biomedical monitoring of the function of the maternal/fetal unit, the proposed method allowed rapid and sensitive screening for the detection of E3-3G and E3-16G. Copyright­© 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metabolomics has focused on toxicological applications to (1) understand the mechanisms of toxicity, (2) identify novel biomarkers of toxicity, and (3) provide in vivo assessment in animal models through simple and fast methods to date. The toxicological effects of nonylphenol (NP) were evaluated after intraperitoneal injection of rats with 0, 50, and 250 mg kg-1 day-1 NP for four consecutive days. In the nontargeted approach, different extraction conditions were introduced to investigate the effects of NP on rats through gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). The GC/MS data obtained were further analyzed with partial least-squares discriminant analysis to compare toxicological effects between control and treated groups. The targeted approach was also used in combination with GC/MS to quantify endocrine hormones and to identify possible biomarkers in rat urine under optimal extraction conditions. In addition, we considered the metabolic trajectory to examine the metabolite profiles and patterns related to steroid metabolism in rats that were treated with NP, considering both treatment amount and time. The data suggest that tetrahydrocorticosterone and 5α-tetrahydrocorticosterone are possible urinary biomarkers of NP-induced toxicity. This metabolomic approach is a promising tool to assist with screening in toxicological studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]