• Randrup Cote posted an update 4 hours, 44 minutes ago

    There are two quite common, but bad, forms of risk communication the conditional probability and the relative risk reduction or efficacy. People, including physicians and dentists, are confused with this kind of information. The main methods discovered so far to facilitate a clearer understanding are to emphasize the base rates of the events and to use absolute numbers, that is to use natural frequencies, instead of percentages and conditional probabilities.Clinical research needs to formulate a question, which must be answered by obeying ethical precepts with well-defined inclusion/exclusion criteria and approval of the study on platforms of ethical appreciation and clinical trial records. In comparing the results or clinically relevant outcomes should be prioritized in the study of techniques, products, inputs, drugs and therapies. However, it is not always possible to use long study drawings, with many participants, and with many costs, then look for study designs with surrogate outcomes, usually a shorter path, with less sample size and considerably lower costs to the research, with shorter intervention time. Considering these outcomes as major challenges in clinical research, the premise of this work was to examine in relevant research platforms, studies on the feasibility of using surrogate endpoints for clinically relevant parameters in dentistry, with a critical evaluation of the advantages, disadvantages, and need for validation of substitute parameters for clinical studies. After a critical analysis of the results, it could be concluded that surrogate endpoints may have an important role in the initial process of developing new drugs, faster, with less sampling, and lower risk of side effects for the patient. UBCS039 in vivo Careful use of the surrogate endpoints is advised because, even if validated, they can provide ambiguous evidence and not be extrapolated to other populations, and may lead to bias due to the individual interpretation of each researcher. The use of unplanned surrogate outcomes that arise during the study requires a lot of caution.Economic evaluations in Dentistry have been increasing in recent years. They are a relevant contribution if an economic issue exists. Knowing if a new intervention is an efficient way of allocating available (and scarce) resources (the concept of opportunity costs), a well-designed economic evaluation may be helpful. One option is to conduct a trial-based economic analysis, which extracts a considerable board of information from a trial. This approach produces a more controlled result since many sources of variations might be reduced. On the other hand, some aspects could not be predicted directly from the trial or even extrapolated. Thus, combining model-based analysis may be an idea. In this paper, we intended to discuss important aspects to be considered by researchers in further economic evaluations. This paper will be systematically divided into sessions related to the study design as time horizon and perspective, health effects, costs, and data analysis. In the end, we expect the reader could be able to plan a trial-based economic evaluation, which should be a careful, meticulous, quite laborious and especially transparent process.The impact of clinical trials on patient care depends on the outcomes that they evaluate. In Dentistry, many trials use outcomes that are important to clinicians, but not to the patients. Thus, the aim of the present manuscript is to present an overview of the limitations, challenges, and proposals on the use of clinically relevant outcomes (CRO) in dental trials. Clinically relevant outcomes are variables that directly measure how the patient feels, functions, or survives. Some CROs, such as tooth loss, implant failure, and restorations failure require many years to occur and the number of events is low. The adoption of these variables as primary outcomes results in challenges for the researchers, such as use of large sample sizes and long follow-up periods. Surrogate outcomes, such as biomarkers, radiographic measurements and indexes, are frequently used to replace CROs. However, they present many limitations, since the effect of the treatment on a surrogate does not necessarily reflect a change in the clinical outcome. Some proposals for the adoption of CROs are presented, such as the development of core outcome sets within each dental specialties and the organization of multi-center clinical trials.The coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic challenges public health systems around the world. Tropical countries will face complex epidemiological scenarios involving the simultaneous transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) with viruses transmitted by Aedes aegypti. The occurrence of arboviral diseases with COVID-19 in the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region presents challenges and opportunities for strengthening health services, surveillance and control programs. Financing of training, equipment and reconversion of hospital spaces will have a negative effect on already the limited resource directed to the health sector. The strengthening of the diagnostic infrastructure reappears as an opportunity for the national reference laboratories. Sharing of epidemiological information for the modeling of epidemiological scenarios allows collaboration between health, academic and scientific institutions. The fear of contagion by COVID-19 is constraining people with arboviral diseases to search for care which can lead to an increase in serious cases and could disrupt the operation of vector-control programs due to the reluctance of residents to open their doors to health personnel. Promoting intense community participation along with the incorporation of long lasting innovations in vector control offers new opportunities for control. The COVID-19 pandemic offers challenges and opportunities that must provoke positive behavioral changes and encourage more permanent self-care actions.This study evaluates how atenolol affects dental mineralization in offspring of female spontaneously hypertensive rats (fSHR) and normotensive Wistar rats (fW). fSHR and fW were treated with atenolol (100 mg/Kg/day, orally) during pregnancy and lactation. Non-treated fSHR and fW were the control groups. Enamel and dentin hardness were analyzed (Knoop, 15 g load, 10s) in mandibular incisor teeth (IT) and molar teeth (MT) obtained from the male offspring of atenolol-treated and non-treated fWistar and fSHR. Data were analyzed by ANOVA, followed by Tukey post hoc test (p less then 0.05). Atenolol reduced the arterial blood pressure (SBP) in fSHR, but it did not change the SBP in fW. The offspring of non-treated fSHR had lower enamel (IT and MT) and dentin (IT) hardness than the offspring of non-treated fW (p less then 0.05). Atenolol increased enamel and dentin hardness in the IT obtained from the offspring of fSHR and fW (p less then 0.05), but the offspring of fSHR presented higher values (p less then 0.