Background. Oral mucocele is a common lesion resulting from an alteration of minor salivary glands due to mucus accumulation. Rapid appearance, specific location, history of trauma, bluish colour, and consistency help in the diagnosis. Conventional surgical removal is the treatment of choice but has several disadvantages like damage to adjacent ducts with further development of satellite lesions. Therefore, the present study was undertaken to evaluate the efficacy of intralesional corticosteroid injection (betamethasone) as a nonsurgical treatment procedure in oral mucoceles. Material and Method. A total of 20 cases (males and females, 10–30 years of age) with clinically diagnosed oral mucoceles were given 1 mL of betamethasone intralesionally. All the patients were examined after a period of 7, 14, and 21 days to evaluate the response of the lesion towards treatment and consequently given the 2nd, 3rd, 4th injections. If the lesion resolved after one or two injections, the treatment was discontinued. Results. Out of the 20 cases, 18 of them showed complete regression of the lesion whereas the remaining 2 cases showed decrease in size. All the patients received maximum of 4 consecutive shots in weekly interval. Conclusion. Intralesional corticosteroid therapy can be considered as the first choice in the treatment of oral mucoceles.

BackgroundMetastatic dissemination of solid tumors is often initiated by reactivation of an embryonic development program, epithelial-to-mesenchymal-transition (EMT). EMT has been associated with acquiring invasiveness and resistance to conventional therapies. However, the precise role of EMT during renal cell carcinoma is still debatable and is under investigation. In this context, our study is designed to evaluate the role of cyclosporine (CsA) and transforming growth factor-β (TGFβ) administration in inducing EMT-like state in renal carcinoma cells. We also studied the associated phenotypic changes which may lead to tumor metastasis.MethodsThe morphological changes in renal cell carcinoma cells (A498) treated with TGF-β/CsA were observed by microscopy. Atomic force microscope was used to evaluate the changes in elasticity of cells treated with TGF-β/CsA. The expression of mesenchymal and chemoresistance genes were checked by RT-PCR. Assays for migration, invasion, sphere formation ability and expression of cancer stem cell-like phenotypes were done to evaluate the metastatic potential of these cells. Lineage specific differentiations were also done to determine the acquisition of stem-cell like phenotype.ResultsOur results showed that treatment with TGF-β/CsA led to loss of epithelial characteristics and gain of mesenchymal phenotype in vitro. Changes in shape and elastic properties of the cancer cells favoured metastatic progression, increased tumorisphere formation and invasiveness post treatment. We also observed higher expression of chemoresistance and stemness markers in EMT-induced cells. These cells also differentiated to various lineages like osteoblasts, adipocytes, neural and hepatic cells when induced with the respective differentiation media.ConclusionWe concluded that TGF-β/CsA treatment led to acquisition of EMT-like cancer stem cells phenotype that enhanced local invasion and dissemination of renal carcinoma cells. This subpopulation of cells with EMT-like phenotype a can provide a better perception of the metastatic process. This can provide an in vitro system for testing pharmaceuticals for modulating EMT as a viable strategy within the therapeutic armamentarium for RCC patients. The results of our findings also suggest that CsA directly induced EMT like changes in epithelial cell which may be responsible for the potential risk of malignancy in transplant patients.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12935-018-0555-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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The relation between the contact angle of a liquid drop and the morphological parameters of self-affine solid surfaces have been investigated. We show experimentally that the wetting property of a solid surface crucially depends on the surface morphological parameters such as: (1) root mean square (rms) roughness σ, (2) in-plane roughness correlation length ξ and (3) roughness exponent α of the self-affine surface. We have shown that the contact angle monotonically decreases with the increase in the rms local surface slope ρ (∝ σ/ξ α ) for the cases where the liquid wets the crevices of the surface upon contact. We have shown that the same solid surface can be made hydrophobic or hydrophilic by merely tuning these self-affine surface morphological parameters.

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