Mebendazole

We evaluated the War on Worms in the Western Visayas (WOW-V) school-based mass treatment strategy in Capiz, the Philippines by assessing potential determinants of program acceptance among parents, teachers, and local health and education officials involved. Written surveys were distributed to parents and teachers assessing knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections. Associations between data were examined using the Fisher's exact test (alpha = 0.05). Descriptive statistics and t-tests were employed to analyze teacher survey results. Local health and education officials participated in key-informant interviews (KIs) to evaluate their attitudes and practices regarding WOW-V; data was qualitatively analyzed and grouped. A strong association was observed between parental consent during the first two rounds of treatment and willingness to do so again. Most parents gave consent for their child to receive treatment at least once and demonstr...

A diffuse reflectance IR Fourier transform IR spectrometry (DRIFTS) method was developed for the rapid, direct measurement of mebendazole in drugs. Conventional KBr spectra and DRIFTS spectra were compared for the best determination of the active substance in the drug formulations. Two chemometric approaches were used in the data processing: multicomponent partial least squares (PLS2) and principal component regression. The best results were obtained with the PLS2 method. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Biopolymers (Biospectroscopy) 67: 56–60, 2002; DOI 10.1002/bip.10041

Autophagy is a conserved homeostatic process active in all human cells and affecting a spectrum of diseases. Here we use a pharmaceutical screen to discover new mechanisms for activation of autophagy. We identify a subset of pharmaceuticals inducing autophagic flux with effects in diverse cellular systems modelling specific stages of several human diseases such as HIV transmission and hyperphosphorylated tau accumulation in Alzheimer's disease. One drug, flubendazole, is a potent inducer of autophagy initiation and flux by affecting acetylated and dynamic microtubules in a reciprocal way. Disruption of dynamic microtubules by flubendazole results in mTOR deactivation and dissociation from lysosomes leading to TFEB (transcription factor EB) nuclear translocation and activation of autophagy. By inducing microtubule acetylation, flubendazole activates JNK1 leading to Bcl-2 phosphorylation, causing release of Beclin1 from Bcl-2-Beclin1 complexes for autophagy induction, thus uncover...

Evidence of an adverse influence of soil transmitted helminth (STH) infections on cognitive function and educational loss is equivocal. Prior meta-analyses have focused on randomized controlled trials only and have not sufficiently explored the potential for disparate influence of STH infection by cognitive domain. We re-examine the hypothesis that STH infection is associated with cognitive deficit and educational loss using data from all primary epidemiologic studies published between 1992 and 2016. Medline, Biosis and Web of Science were searched for original studies published in the English language. Cognitive function was defined in four domains (learning, memory, reaction time and innate intelligence) and educational loss in two domains (attendance and scholastic achievement). Pooled effect across studies were calculated as standardized mean differences (SMD) to compare cognitive and educational measures for STH infected/non-dewormed children versus STH uninfected /dewormed chi...

Angiostrongylus cantonensis is the major cause of human eosinophilic meningoencephalitis. ICR mice were infected orally with 35 infective larvae and sacrificed at 4–14 days, 25 days or 32 days post infection (dpi) for pathological and immunocytochemical examinations. In the non-treated group, no apoptosis signal was found in the meninges or parenchyma of the brains (4–14 dpi). Only a few apoptotic cells were noticed at 25 dpi (3%) and 32 dpi (10%). In the groups, the animals were given a single dose of mebendazole (20 mg/kg, per os at various times) or injections of interleukin 12 (IL-12) (10 ng/daily, intraperitoneally), all the animals were sacrificed at 14 dpi; the number of apoptotic cells was increased (17–21%). In the group that received a single dose of mebendazole (4 dpi) in combination with IL-12 injections (4–13 dpi), mild meningitis was observed, and most of the infiltrated inflammatory cells were in the apoptotic program (55%). Taken together, apoptosis of the inflammatory cells (most were eosinophils) could be induced when the infected mice were treated with mebendazole or/and IL-12.

ABSTRACT. Taxol, a plant alkaloid stabilizer of microtubules, inhibits in vitro the replication of the human pathogenic flagellate Trichomonas vaginalis in a dose-dependent fashion. Micromolar concentrations of the drug induce massive assembly of microtubules, resistant to antimicrotubule agents, and block the mitosis of the protozoa at an early stage preceding the formation of the spindle fibers and the depolymerization of the axostylar microtubules. Some hypotheses involving the inactivation of the microtubule-organizing centers and the stabilization of axostylar microtubules are formulated to explain the mechanism of action of taxol.

Hookworm infection is associated with anemia, especially among children and deworming can improve anemic status; however, little information is available about the degree to which anemia improves after deworming. We chose hookworm-endemic rural areas of Thailand, Nan Province in the north, Kanchanaburi Province in the west and Nakhon Si Thammarat Province in the south, to evaluate this problem. Subjects were selected by primary school-based stool egg examinations. Blood tests of 182 hookworm-positive primary school children, composed of 22 heavy, 65 moderate and 95 light infections, were compared with a control group of 57 children who were helminth-free both before and after receiving deworming medicine. Before deworming, the red blood cell (RBC), hemoglobin (Hb), hematocrit (Hct), mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH) and mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC) and albumin levels of the hookworm-infected groups were significantly lower than the helminth-free control group. The Hb and Hct levels showed an inverse relationship with intensity of hookworm infection. After deworming, the Hb, Hct, total protein and albumin levels of the hookworm-infected children improved within 2 months to become comparable with the helminth-free control group. One year after deworming, the mean blood test results in the 2 groups were not significantly different from each other.