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Background: Bone is the most common site for metastases in cancer and may complicate a wide range of malignancies. Radiotherapy is a successful and efficient method for pain palliation and it can prevent the morbidity of bone metastases. Pain flare is a common event, occurring in almost 40% of the patients that receive palliative radiotherapy. Dexamethasone has shown possibility for prevention of such flare. Objective: This study aimed to investigate the efficacy of dexamethasone as prophylaxis for radiotherapy-induced pain flare in cases of painful bone metastases. Patients and Methods: Prospective randomized control trial was conducted at the Oncology and Nuclear Therapy Unit, Suez Canal University Hospital. The study involved 129 patients. Patients with painful bone metastases were divided into two groups, Study group received 8 mg dexamethasone first day of radiotherapy then for three days after finishing treatment, while control group received radiotherapy only. Results: The mean age in study group was 60.59 ± 7.64 years in comparison to 59.85 ± 7.02 years in control group. The most common primary sites were breast and prostate cancer. Incidence of pain flare was 8.8% of patients among study group while 19.7% of patients among control group. The difference between both groups was statistically non-significant. Conclusion: Dexamethasone does not play a significant role in reducing pain flare after palliative radiotherapy on painful bone metastases.

Infection with Veronaea botryosa can result in rare cutaneous or disseminated, granulomatous to pyogranulomatous phaeohyphomycosis in humans, although disease due to the fungus has also been reported in non-mammalian vertebrates. This report documents disease due to V. botryosa in captive, juvenile to subadult or young adult white sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus Richardson) from California USA and complements a previous report of the disease in captive Siberian sturgeon (Acipenser baerii) from Florida USA. Pathological examinations revealed granulomatous to pyogranulomatous inflammation of multiple organs. Isolates of the fungal agent were phenotypically consistent with V. botryosa, and molecular analyses of the D1/D2 region of the fungal 28S rRNA gene and the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region located between the fungal 18S and 28S rRNA genes confirmed the aetiologic agent as V. botryosa. The disease in captive sturgeon results in a considerable economic encumbrance to the producer due to the loss of the cumulative financial resources invested in the production of older subadult to young adult sturgeon.

The electrophilicity of the functional groups of β-aroylpropionic acid 3 was utilized as a key starting material through the reaction with different nitrogen nucleophiles to synthesize novel various pyridazin-3(2H)-one derivatives as well as some condensed acyclic compounds. The chemical structures of the synthesized compounds were characterized by IR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR, and mass spectra beside elemental analysis. The antifungal activity of the synthesized compounds against three types of fungus namely, Fusarium solani, Alternaria solani, and Fusarium semitectum realized that β-aroylpropionic acid 3, thiosemicarbazone derivative 8, and N-cyanoacetyl dihydropyridazinone derivative 17 displayed spectacular results for antifungal study and are worth being further evaluated in vivo and in the field.