This review mainly focuses on nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems fabricated from plants (starch, cellulose, pectin), animals (chitosan, gelatin) and microorganisms (dextran). Herein, the focus is on the physical-chemical properties of biopolymers and its derivatives and the mechanism of action in the treatments of cancer. Nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems improved efficacy by: increasing half-life of vulnerable drugs and proteins, improving the solubility of hydrophobic drugs, and allowing controlled and targeted release of drugs in diseased site. Of all the mentioned biopolymers, only dextran and pure pectin are problematic. Some clinical studies have shown unexpected side effects caused by dextran such as thrombocytopenia and hepatotoxicity and, pure pectin-based materials, undesirable swelling and corrosion properties. Doxorubicin has been used in combination with almost all of these biopolymers because it is widely used as an effective chemotherapeutic agent in the treatment of many types of solid tumors of the breast, lung, colon, ovary, prostate and bladder.

Recently, nanotechnology is widely used in agriculture with the aim of achieving high agricultural yields. Due to the unique surface and physicochemical properties, nanomaterials can be used to deliver nutrients to plants via nanoparticles, for the synthesis of nanopesticides, nanofungicides, and to design nanosensors for the detection of very low concentrations of pesticides and other contaminants. Excessive use of pesticides and fertilizers causes the loss of soil biodiversity and the development of resistance to pathogens. Nenoencapsulation of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides is used for slow and specific dosed release of nutrients as well as agrochemicals. This paper discusses the applications of nanotechnology and their positive effect in agriculture in relation to the common methods used so far.

Development of solid self-nanoemulsifying drug delivery systems (s-SNEDDS) for oral delivery of lysozyme Merima Sirbubalo, Tamás Sovány, Katalin Kristó, Géza Regdon jr, Edina Vranić 1 University of Sarajevo, Faculty of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina 2 University of Szeged, Faculty of Pharmacy, Institute of Pharmaceutical Technology and Regulatory Affairs, Szeged, Hungary

Background/Aim: Breast-conserving surgery is a type of surgery used as a treatment option for breast cancer. It was introduced at the end of the 20th century following and in accordance with relevant clinical studies. With heightened public awareness of breast cancer and the introduction of new diagnostic procedures, despite the proven oncological safety of this type of surgery, a growing number of women choose to undergo total mastectomy. The aim of this study was to confirm the oncological safety of breast-conserving surgery performed on breast cancer patients at the University Clinical Centre of the Republic of Srpska. Methods: This study analysed 305 female patients with I and II stage of breast cancer, operated on between March 2009 and December 2013. One group of patients underwent breast-conserving surgery (BCS), followed by adjuvant radiation therapy and the other total mastectomy (MX). The patients were followed up for 5 years after the surgery. Analysed herein were the local-regional recurrence, distant metastases, disease-free survival and overall survival rates. Results: After a five-year follow-up, the local-regional recurrence rate for patients in the BCS group was 4.3 %, while for the MX group it was 4.2 %. The overall survival rate of patients in the BCS group was 90.9 %, as opposed to 89.1 % for MX patients. Conclusion: After a five-year follow-up, no statistically significant difference was observed between the two groups of patients regarding the local-regional recurrence (p = 0.967) and overall survival rates (p = 0.610). Breast-conserving surgery is an oncologically safe surgical treatment for breast cancer.

Background/Aim: Dehiscence of the colorectal anastomosis is one of the most serious complications in digestive surgery that is still present in a large percentage today, which significantly increases the cost of treatment and can lead to death. Due to all the above, early detection of anastomotic dehiscence is very important, as well as the decision on surgical treatment. Procalcitonin (PCT) is thought to be an important marker of inflammation and sepsis. Aim of this paper was to confirm PCT as a marker of great sensitivity in early diagnosis of anastomotic leakage. Methods: The study included patients who underwent surgery for colorectal cancer in the period from 2016 to 2020. Patients were operated according to an elective protocol and with an open surgical approach. In patients, PCT values were measured on the 2nd and 4th postoperative day (POD) to determine the association between elevated PCT values and the onset of dehiscence of the colorectal anastomosis. Results: A study was conducted in 118 patients in whom a stapler colorectal anastomosis was created. Colorectal anastomosis dehiscence occurred in 10 patients. In 4 patients with dehiscence, no re-surgical intervention was required, but they were taken care of by conservative methods. Repeated surgery was performed in 6 patients. In all patients with dehiscence, there was a multiple increase in the value of PCT above normal. Conclusion: PCT has high sensitivity and specificity (85 and 74 % respectively) as a marker in dehiscence of colorectal anastomosis. In this study it was found that PCT values were significantly correlated with the dehiscence of anastomo-sis 2nd POD and especially 4th POD.

Determining the demographic characteristics of a person post-mortem is a fundamental task for forensic experts, and the dental system is a crucial source of those information. Those characteristics, namely age and sex, can reliably be determined. The mandible and individual teeth survive even the harshest conditions, making them a prime target for forensic analysis. Current methods in forensic odontology rely on time-consuming manual measurements and reference tables, many of which rely on the correct determination of the tooth type. This study thoroughly explores the applicability of deep learning for sex assessment, age estimation, and tooth type determination from x-ray images of individual teeth. A series of models that use state-of-the-art feature extraction architectures and attention have been trained and evaluated. Their hyperparameters have been explored and optimized using a combination of grid and random search, totaling over a thousand experiments and 14076 hours of GPU compute time. Our dataset contains 86495 individual tooth x-ray image samples, with a subset of 7630 images having additional information about tooth alterations. The best-performing models are fine-tuned, the impact of tooth alterations is analyzed, and model performance is compared to current methods in forensic odontology literature. We achieve an accuracy of 76.41% for sex assessment, a median absolute error of 4.94 years for age estimation, and an accuracy of 87.24% to 99.15% for tooth type determination. The constructed models are fully automated and fast, their results are reproducible, and the performance is equal to or better than current state-of-the-art methods in forensic odontology.