Current Pharmaceutical Design - Volume 24, Issue 12, 2018

Factors strongly related to the risk of developing diabetic foot infections include vascular, neuropathic and hyperglycemic complications of long-standing diabetes mellitus. These infections are common and serious, posing a worldwide burden on administrative providers of healthcare, patients and physicians. The most appropriate approach to these infections is with a multidisciplinary team. This subchapter summarizes Read More

Background: Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is a common medical condition affecting more than 6% of the world population. Besides well-known pathology like diabetic retinopathy and renal insufficiency, it carries important orthopedic implications, especially around the foot and ankle (diabetic foot). Focus: This article focusses on the three major areas confronting the orthopedist: 1) changes in foot statics and biology leading to ulcera Read More

Background: Diagnosing diabetic foot infection is often difficult, despite several available diagnostic methods. Amongst these, several imaging modalities exist to evaluate the diabetic foot in case of a suspected osteomyelitis. Nuclear Medicine, in particular, offers a variety of radiopharmaceuticals and techniques. Nowadays the gold standard radionuclide procedure, when an osteomyelitis is suspected, is repre Read More

Osteomyelitis in the diabetic foot can be difficult to diagnose and has serious consequences. Although 2-deoxy-2-[18F]-fluoro-D-glucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) was traditionally used in oncology, it is emerging as a useful method in inflammatory and infectious entities. In this chapter, original research articles, meta-analyses, and reviews on the performance of FDG PET in diagnosing osteomyelitis in the di Read More

Diabetic Foot Infections (DFIs) are associated with increased morbidity, an economic burden on patients, their families and healthcare systems and increased mortality. Early diagnosis with prompt, appropriate and adequate treatment of the infected diabetic foot is crucial. The determination of DFIs, however, may be quite perplexing and invasive. Imaging is useful in the evaluation of certain cases of DFIs, especially in suspected Read More

Background: The most severe diabetic foot ulcers are those related with critical ischemia, which is primarily diagnosed with non-invasive diagnostics. However, these diagnostics have several disadvantages. For example, they only provide global indications of the (macro)level of ischemia. A potential solution can be found in novel optical imaging techniques for local assessment of the microcirculation in diabetic fo Read More

Background: Influenza is a widely distributed infection that almost annually causes seasonal epidemics. The current egg-based platforms for influenza vaccine production are facing a number of challenges and are failing to satisfy the global demand in the case of pandemics due to the long production time. Recombinant vaccines are an alternative that can be quickly produced in high quantities in standard expression sy Read More

Heterocyclic N-oxides have emerged as promising agents against a number of diseases and disorders, especially infectious diseases. This review analyzes the emergence and development of this scaffold in the medicinal chemistry, focusing mainly on the discovery of new heterocyclic N-oxide compounds with potent activity against tuberculosis, malaria and neglected tropical diseases (i.e. leishmaniasis and Chagas disease). A Read More