Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

COVID-19 evidenced the need for preventive protocols to control its spread worldwide. Therefore, the purpose of this review was to compare the current indications and regulations for the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) in dental care. For the bibliographic search, keywords such as “Containment of Biohazards”, “Personal Protective Equipment”, “dental office”, “COVID-19” were used during the advanced search in Pubmed and academic Google. Forty regulations were obtained that met all the selection criteria for preventive measures through the use of PPE by the operator and the patient; being more detailed the Sanitary Directive 100-MINSA published in 2020 without evidence of updating in this year 2021. Likewise, in studies carried out on the reuse of masks, it was determined that the most effective method was decontamination with UV-C, which maintains their integrity and filtering capacity.

Edentulism is the partial or total loss of teeth. This has been considered a disability, linked to the quality of life and the economic aspect. In order to know the prevalence of edentulism in older adults in Latin America, this descriptive research was carried out, type bibliographic review.Information was collected from 17 cross-sectional investigations from 10 Latin American countries, in specialized databases such as Lilacs, Scielo, Pubmed, Elsevier and academic Google; in which the prevalence of edentulism is described; that, although it is not a phenomenon exclusive to the geriatric population, it has a high prevalence in this population sector in Latin America. This evidences the need to increase access to oral health services in the region from early ages of life.

The color of teeth can be altered by pigmenting or chromogenic substances, by retention in the dental biofilm, bacterial plaque or by chemical alteration of the tooth surface. Among the products available to remove these pigmentations, in order to maintain the color of natural teeth, there are whitening toothpastes, which have the characteristic of being freely available and can be purchased without a prescription. These toothpastes use mechanical, chemical or physical mechanisms and do not cause greater abrasion of the enamel when compared to conventional toothpastes. The aim of this review article was to evaluate the evidence on the efficacy of whitening toothpastes on tooth color and to verify the potential risks of their frequent use.

This article recounts our experience adapting the Physics lecturing to virtual modality at Instituto de Ciencias Polares, Universidad Nacional de Tierra del Fuego (Argentina) due to the covid-19 pandemics in the years 2020 and 2021. Our goal was preserving the essence of the in-person modality: interactive engagement focusing on group work and debates, so virtuality posed a significant challenge. To face it, we assembled an interdisciplinary team and the agile methodology was adopted, complementing our usual implementation of systematic innovation. We suggest that from combining the in-person modality with tools acquired during confinement a more robust Physics course will arise, with a far more consistent formative evaluation scheme.

In this work, physics teachers are provided with an optimized method to solve transcendental equations that cannot be solved algebraically and appear very often in higher education physics and engineering courses. The method is based on an interpolation with Chebyshev’s polynomials, and it is optimized for computational time, manageability, and accuracy. The method has been applied in specific problems of physics where transcendental equations appear, such as the compression of a real spring; the equation of a diode; the solution of the Schrödinger equation in a potential well; and the computing of cutoff wave numbers of a coaxial wire. The method is compared with others of the literature to check its correct behavior and the improvements that it presents. MATLAB source codes to implement the method and particular examples are also provided.

Introducción: la leptospirosis es una de las zoonosis que en Cuba se presenta de forma endémica, es causante de pérdidas humanas, animales y económicas, por lo que es un problema de salud. Las ratas constituyen un vector transmisor de gran importancia. Trabajos experimentales para estudiar las alteraciones renales fetales en modelo de rata Wistar no se han realizado en Cuba.Objetivo: identificar las principales alteraciones morfométricas renales en fetos de ratas Wistar infectadas con serovariedad Leptospira canicola, en la Universidad de Ciencias Médicas de Pinar del Rio en el período comprendido entre 2017-2019.Método: se realizó un estudio experimental en ratas Wistar preñadas: 2 grupos con tres animales cada uno: el grupo experimental con dosis de una concentración bacteriana de 300 millones de leptospiras por mililitros; se inoculó 1 ml a cada una infectándolas con cepas de Leptospira canicola. Se estudiaron los riñones de fetos extraídos por cesárea y se analizaron las variables: longitud renal y peso del riñón.Resultados: los resultados obtenidos confirmaron los daños renales producidos por la Leptospira canicola tanto en el eje mayor como el menor de ambos riñones, así como variaciones en el peso de las crías infectadas.Conclusiones: los riñones son órganos que pueden afectarse ampliamente ante la infección con Leptospira canicola produciéndose en ellos una gran variedad de alteraciones histopatológicas.

Introduction: the development of research skills in medical education allows graduates to provide solutions to professional problems from a scientific and investigative conception. The training and development of these skills are conditioned by the program of a major that responds to the interests, needs and demands of society and the personal resources that the individual also possesses.Objective: to systematize updated information related to investigative skills in health professionals, to understand the aspects that influence the skills´ training and development.Method: an extensive literature review related to the training and development of research skills in medical education was carried out. Original and review articles, as well as letters to the editor were considered. Databases such as: SciELO, PubMed, Science Direct and Elsevier were consulted.Results: research together with teaching and engagement are the fundamental pillars of the medical college worldwide, an institution of this type in which health professionals are trained, cannot be conceived without the management of these three elementary processes that guide the construction of knowledge and social change.Conclusions: continuing education should be aimed at enhancing the knowledge of health professionals in research methodology, biostatistics and scientific writing. On the other hand, it is necessary to develop postgraduate studies such as doctorates and master's degrees so that graduates enhance their knowledge in these subjects.

Introduction: Open data for the validation and generalization of research results as well as the recycling of datasets is a felt need in healthcare.Objective: to describe the FAIR principles for research data management.Method: a search in the Scopus, SciELO, Redalyc and PubMed/MedLine databases for gathering information was carried out applying a formula with the combined use of terms and Boolean operators. The terms "Open data", "research data", and "FAIR" were used. Development: Open data mean a breakthrough in information sciences, and even in health field has made progress in the last decade. It is not enough just to produce and share data, they must comply a set of principles for digitalizing, reproducing and recycling. FAIR data seek to achieve findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable datasets, as well as the elimination of cultural, socioeconomic and technical barriers. The FAIR principles application in health sciences allows a better use of resources avoiding the replication of research with negative results, granting the reuse of data and the generalization of results by combining them. Conclusions: the FAIR principles seek to strengthen open science, eliminate barriers, for developing infrastructures, protocols and data policies. The application in health sciences is of great value, as constitute a powerful tool for improving research and care practices.