BACKGROUND Placenta immunomodulatory ferritin (PLIF) cDNA was recently cloned from the human placenta, where it is expressed in syncytiotrophoblast and decidual mononuclear cells. PLIF and its subcloned bioactive domain (C48), expressed in Escherichia coli, are immunosuppressive proteins and induce pronounced IL-10 production in vitro and in vivo. METHODS AND RESULTS PLIF serum level, measure...

As the population ages, more elderly patients suffer from spinal stenosis requiring lumbar fusion. However, there are few and conflicting results regarding the clinical outcome of lumbar fusion. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the safety and efficiency of posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF) in over 75-year-old patients and analyze the relative effectiveness of lumbar spinal fusion...

The aim of this study was to compare the clinical efficacy between transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF) and posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF) in treatment of lumbar spondylolisthesis. A total of 62 patients with lumbar spondylolisthesis were treated at our hospital from 2010 to 2013. These patients were divided into a TLIF group that included 36 patients (mean age: 60 years) and...

Immune tolerance mechanisms supporting normal human pregnancy are exploited by breast cancer and other malignancies. We cloned from human placenta and breast cancer cells the novel human immunomodulator named placenta immunosuppressive ferritin (PLIF). PLIF is composed of a ferritin heavy chain-like domain and a novel cytokine-like domain, named C48. Both intact PLIF and C48 inhibit T cell prol...

Detailed studies of flame-vortex interactions are extremely valuable to improve our understanding of turbulent combustion regimes. Combined experimental and numerical studies have already been performed in the premixed case during previous investigations. Therefore, we decided to carry out a detailed experimental investigation on the regimes observed during interaction of a vortex ring and a no...

Background The number of lumbar spine surgeries has been increasing during the last 20 years, which also leads to an increase in hospital costs and complications related to surgery. Therefore, there is a greater concern about the costs and safety of the techniques and implants used. Methods Patients (aged from 18 to 50 years) presenting with lumbago /sciatica (ICD-10-CM M54.3, M54.4) due to l...

Objective To compare the medium-term clinical and radiographic outcomes of Dynesys dynamic stabilization and posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF) for treatment of multisegmental lumbar degenerative disease. Methods Fifty-seven patients with multisegmental lumbar degenerative disease underwent Dynesys stabilization (n = 26) or PLIF (n = 31) from December 2008 to February 2010. The mean follo...

background & aim: the purpose of this study was to evaluate and compare the pain of patients with spondylolisthesis who had undergone either of the surgery techniques: posterolateral fusion (plf) or posterior lumbar interbody fusion (plif). methods & materials/patients: in a prospective observational study, 102 surgical candidates with low grade degenerative and isthmic spondylolisthesis were e...

The application of nonlinear anisotropic diffusion filtering to reduce noise and enhance contours in images obtained by two-dimensional planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) spectroscopy is presented. In this process the diffusion coefficient is locally adapted, becoming negligible as object boundaries are approached. Noise is efficiently removed, and object contours are strongly enhanced. T...

Organic dyes commonly used for planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) are susceptible to photobleaching under laser excitation. Previous work has shown that photobleaching can induce significant errors in laser-induced fluorescence measurements made with single-point techniques. This paper presents an analytical model and experimental results that quantify the extent of photobleaching in the ...