Mirabegron has been registered as the first strong and selective agonist of the β3 receptor. It is currently used for relief of symptoms of overactive bladder (OAB). That onerous illness involving ...urgency and detrusor overactivity, that may be accompanied by incontinence, affects approx. 16% of the population. Before registration of Mirabegron, the main pharmacological and non-surgical therapeutic method was the treatment with anti-muscarinic drugs, associated with burdensome adverse effects. Clinical trials on over 10,000 participants demonstrated efficacy and safety of Mirabegron. Besides monotherapy, attempts are being made to use Mirabegron in combined therapy of OAB. The innovative mechanism of action of the drug makes it an attractive option not only in treatment of conditions of the urinary system, but also of metabolic disorders and diseases of the cardiovascular system. This article provides a review of the current knowledge and recent reports regarding Mirabegron - an alternative in treatment of the common and onerous disease of overactive bladder.
The first information on the Fregoli syndrome (delusion) was presented in 1927 by Courbon and Fail. This entity is a part of a wider range of delusional misidentification syndromes. The feature which ...distinguishes the Fregoli syndrome is the patient’s conviction that some persons known to them constantly change their appearance while retaining their existing psychological characteristics. Delusions of persecution are also present. Researchers classify this disorder in many ways, there are also various hypotheses about its development. There are reasons to believe that this condition often develops in paranoid schizophrenia, following head injuries and in dementia associated with Alzheimer’s disease. The list of medical conditions involving the Fregoli syndrome is significantly longer, however. Considering the small amount of epidemiological data, it can be inferred that the disorder occurs very rarely. There is little available information both on the Fregoli syndrome and on the whole group of delusional misidentification syndromes. Taking into consideration the patient’s age and comorbidity allows to distinguish the disorder from other disease entities belonging to the group mentioned above. Researchers distinguish two main pathophysiological hypotheses: an organic and a psychodynamic one. A wide range of symptoms characterise the disorder, which may be connected with the presence of other diseases. In the diagnosis of the disease entity, the following imaging techniques are used: computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, single-proton emission computed tomography, positron emission tomography, electroencephalography and echoencephalography. The therapy frequently consists in treating the primary cause as a result of which Fregoli syndrome secondarily appeared. Neuroleptics are mainly used, but other groups of medication are also prescribed. Apart from pharmacological treatment, electroconvulsive therapy, psychotherapy and sociotherapy are used as well.
Transplantation of neural stem/precursor cells has recently been proposed as a promising, albeit still controversial, approach to brain repair. Human umbilical cord blood could be a source of such ...therapeutic cells, proven beneficial in several preclinical models of stroke. Intracerebroventricular infusion of neutrally committed cord blood-derived cells allows their broad distribution in the CNS, whereas additional labeling with iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIO) enables to follow the fate of engrafted cells by MRI. A 16-month-old child at 7 months after the onset of cardiac arrest-induced global hypoxic/ischemic brain injury, resulting in a permanent vegetative state, was subjected to intracerebroventricular transplantation of the autologous neutrally committed cord blood cells. These cells obtained by 10-day culture in vitro in neurogenic conditions were tagged with SPIO nanoparticles and grafted monthly by three serial injections (12 × 10(6) cells/0.5 ml) into lateral ventricle of the brain. Neural conversion of cord blood cells and superparamagnetic labeling efficiency was confirmed by gene expression, immunocytochemistry, and phantom study. MRI examination revealed the discrete hypointense areas appearing immediately after transplantation in the vicinity of lateral ventricles wall with subsequent lowering of the signal during entire period of observation. The child was followed up for 6 months after the last transplantation and his neurological status slightly but significantly improved. No clinically significant adverse events were noted. This report indicates that intracerebroventricular transplantation of autologous, neutrally committed cord blood cells is a feasible, well tolerated, and safe procedure, at least during 6 months of our observation period. Moreover, a cell-related MRI signal persisted at a wall of lateral ventricle for more than 4 months and could be monitored in transplanted brain hemisphere.
This paper presents a model created with the use of ArcGIS tool - ModelBuilder. The model is applied to the analysis of the real estate market of urbanized areas. The model enables visualization of ...the spatial distribution of land prices. The application of the model is shown in the example of the city of Lublin.The analysis began with the delimitation of the central point of the city. In the next step the prices were averaged in the concentring rings surrounding the central point of the city. The analysis revealed that the land prices considerably decline as the distance of the land from the city centre increases. Additionally, an increase in property prices was observed in the rings located in a radius of about 5 km from the city centre. Thanks to the model, the process of visualization of the spatial distribution of land prices was significantly speeded up.
We examined the plasma profile of sulfur amino acids (SAA) in patients with chronic renal failure (CRF) and looked for any correlation with serum folate (FA) and/or vitamin B12. Group 1 comprised 9 ...patients with CRF and glomerular filtration rate (GFR) >20 ml/min per 1.73 m2, 9 patients with GFR<20 ml/min per 1.73 m2 comprised group 2, and 14 patients on hemodialysis group 3. The control group comprised 16 healthy children. Homocysteine (Hcy), methionine (Met), cysteine (Cys), and serine (Ser) were measured with gas chromatography. FA and vitamin B12 were measured using enzymatic immunoassay. Median SAA concentrations were significantly lower in controls than in the three groups of patients. Hcy concentrations were 0.8 micromol/l in controls versus 5 micromol/(group 1), 9 micromol/l (group 2), and 20 micromol/l (group 3). Met concentrations were 26 micromol/l in controls versus 26 micromol/l (group 1), 66 micromol/l (group 2), and 281 micromol/l (group 3). Cys concentrations were 10 micromol/ in controls versus 98 micromol/l (group 1), 54 micromol/l (group 2), and 122 micromol/l (group 3). Ser concentrations were 88 micromol/ in controls versus 153 micromol/l (group 1), 239 micromol/l (group 2), and 240 micromol/l (group 3). The median concentrations of FA were lower in controls than in groups 2 and 3: 5.5 ng/ml versus 8 ng/ml and 15 ng/ml, respectively. Vitamin B12 concentrations did not differ between groups. Vitamin levels did not correlate with SAA. The only difference between patients with Hcy levels in the lower and upper quartile was in Met concentration (38 vs. 263 micromol/l, P<0.02) and GFR (P<0.01). In conclusion, patients with CRF had higher SAA concentrations than healthy children. FA concentrations are higher in CRF patients than in healthy children but did not correlate with concentrations of SAA.
Node classification in Social Network is currently receiving raising attention in the Social Network Analysis research. The main objective of node classification is to assign the correct label to the ...unlabeled nodes from a set of all possible class labels. This classification task is performed using features extracted from a Social Network dataset. The success of proper feature extraction significantly influences classification accuracy, providing more discriminative description of the data. This paper describes label-dependent features extraction and examines the classification accuracy based on features extracted with this approach. The experiments on real-world data have shown that usage of label-dependent features can lead to significant improvement of classification accuracy.
We report on a 6-year-old boy with a 2.5-year history of recurrent cerebral ischemic strokes and moderate systemic hypertension. Brain angio-MR examination revealed stenosis of cerebral arteries with ...a network of collateral vessels that are characteristic features for moyamoya disease. However, further examination, including angio-CT of abdominal vessels, revealed a significant stenosis of the aorta, celiac trunk and bilateral renal arteries. As the literature shows worse prognosis for moyamoya hypertensive patients having their blood pressure reduced, our patient, though hypertensive, remains disqualified for blood pressure reduction.
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