Atherosclerosis is one of the main mechanisms of stroke and cardiovascular diseases and is associated with increased risk of recurrent stroke and cardiovascular events. Intima-medial thickness (IMT) ...is a well-known surrogate marker of atherosclerosis and has been used to predict stroke and cardiovascular events. However, the clinical significance of IMT and IMT change in stroke has not been investigated in well-designed studies. The PreventIon of CArdiovascular events in iSchemic Stroke patients with high risk of cerebral hemOrrhage—Intima-Media Thickness (PICASSO-IMT) sub-study is designed to investigate the effects of cilostazol, probucol, or both on IMT in patients with stroke.
PICASSO-IMT is a prospective sub-study of the PICASSO study designed to measure IMT and plaque score at 1, 13, 25, 37, and 49 months after randomization.
The primary outcome is the change in mean carotid IMT, which is defined as the mean of the far-wall IMTs of the right and left common carotid arteries, between baseline and 13 months after randomization.
PICASSO-IMT will provide the largest IMT data set in a stroke population and will provide valuable information about the clinical significance of IMT in patients with ischemic stroke.
The effect of local anaesthetic on the extraocular muscles was investigated in dogs by injecting lidocaine into the space between Tenon’s capsule and the sclera. A cross-over design was used with ...both eyes from five Beagle dogs randomly injected, under general anaesthesia, with 1mL of 2% lidocaine (1mL-lidocaine group), 2mL of 2% lidocaine (2mL-lidocaine group) or 2mL of normal saline (control group). Each eye was assigned to all treatments with a minimum 14day interval between injections. Changes in eye position, pupil diameter, and intraocular pressure (IOP) were evaluated during the procedure.
All eyes in the 2mL-lidocaine group exhibited akinesia and mydriasis (pupil diameter >10mm) with an onset time of 6.5±4.9 and 4.2±4.3min, respectively. In the 1mL-lidocaine group, akinesia was induced in nine eyes and mydriasis occurred in seven eyes at 10.7±5.8 and 5.4±2.4min after the injection, respectively. No changes in eye position or pupil diameter were observed in the control group. Akinesia was maintained for 44.3±26.7min in the 1mL-lidocaine group and for 88.5±17.2min in the 2mL-lidocaine group. Duration of mydriasis was 51.7±28.9min in the 1mL-lidocaine group and 82.9±15.6min in the 2mL-lidocaine group. Marked chemosis and sub-conjunctival haemorrhage occurred in 16/30 and 15/30 eyes, respectively. No significant change in IOP was observed between the mean pre- and post-injection values in all groups. These results suggest that a sub-Tenon’s injection of 2mL of 2% lidocaine provided effective extraocular muscle akinesia and mydriasis in dogs.
Si incorporated diamond-like carbon (Si-DLC) films ranging from 0 to 2 at.% contents were deposited on STS 316L substrates for orthopedic implants by means of rf plasma-assisted chemical vapor ...deposition (rf PACVD) technique, using mixtures of benzene (C
6H
6) and silane (SiH
4) as the precursor gases. This study provides the reliable and quantitative data for assessment of the effect of Si incorporation on wear–corrosion properties in the simulated body fluid environment through the tribological and electrochemical test. It was found that wear and corrosion to resistance of Si-DLC coatings with increasing Si content were improved owing to high sp
3 bonding.
Abstract Background Hormone receptor-positive, pre-menopausal breast cancer patients can be treated by chemotherapy and/or ovarian suppression therapy. We reported our experience of ...gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogue plus tamoxifen (GnRHa + T) or adriamycin and cyclophosphamide (AC) followed by tamoxifen (AC → T) in pre-menopausal women with hormone-response, node-negative breast cancer. Methods We retrospectively reviewed the records of 587 pre-menopausal women with hormone-responsive, node-negative breast cancer. Of these, 269 were treated with adriamycin and cyclophosphamide (AC) followed by tamoxifen (AC → T), and 318 were treated with gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogue plus tamoxifen (GnRHa + T). Among them, 151 patients were treated by goserelin acetate 3.6 mg/kg and 125 patients were treated by leuprorelin acetate 3.75 mg/kg every 28 days subcutaneously. Findings At a median follow-up time of 30 months, eight patients had relapsed and three had died. DFS did not differ between the AC → T and GnRHa + T groups. Of the three deaths, two were not related to breast cancer. The third patient, in the AC → T group, died because of brain metastasis. GnRHa + T treatment had no effect on blood profile and did not cause the development of detrimental symptoms but decreased bone mineral density. The efficacy of leuprorelin was similar to that of goserelin. Interpretation GnRHa + T treatment can be an alternative treatment option in pre-menopausal women with endocrine-responsive, node-negative, breast cancer patients. The efficacy and tolerability of leuprorelin were similar to that of goserelin.
Due to many conflicting goals, the power service restoration problem is a multiple-criteria decision making problem. This paper proposes a new restoration strategy consisting of two steps: candidate ...set generation and fuzzy decision making, which can generate the most preferable plan. The object-oriented paradigm has been adopted in the development of the system and three models-object model, functional model, dynamic model-have been designed. The test results have shown the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Tight junction proteins claudin 3 (CLDN3) and claudin 4 (CLDN4) are frequently altered in several human cancers, including ovarian carcinomas. Here, we examined the gene expression of CLDN3 and CLDN4 ...in various tumors, including 19 normal ovaries and 47 ovarian carcinomas by analyzing Affymetrix HG-U133 array data. Furthermore, a total of 114 ovarian serous tumors, including 10 adenomas, 20 borderline tumors and 84 carcinomas, were analyzed immunohistochemically to confirm the expression of two proteins and we assessed the association of their expression with the clinicopathological characteristics and survival of the patients. The microarray experiment revealed CLDN3 and CLDN4 transcripts were significantly up-regulated by 5-fold or more in most subtypes of ovarian epithelial carcinomas while the immunohistochemical analyses indicated that each protein was expressed in 68 (81.0%) and 72 (85.7%) of 84 serous adenocarcinomas, respectively. Borderline serous tumors and adenomas showed significantly lower expression of these proteins than the adenocarcinomas. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that serous adenocarcinoma patients with high CLDN3 expression had substantially shorter survival (P=0.027). Multivariate analysis demonstrated that CLDN3 overexpression is an independent negative prognostic factor. Our findings suggest that CLDN3 overexpression can be used as a prognostic indicator in ovarian serous carcinomas. Moreover, CLDN3 may be a promising target for antibody-based therapy of ovarian carcinomas.
Although the kidney is a major organ for vitamin D metabolism, activity, and calcium-related homeostasis, little is known about whether this nutrient plays a role in the development or the inhibition ...of kidney cancer. To address this gap in knowledge, the authors examined the association between circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) and kidney cancer within a large, nested case-control study developed as part of the Cohort Consortium Vitamin D Pooling Project of Rarer Cancers. Concentrations of 25(OH)D were measured from 775 kidney cancer cases and 775 age-, sex-, race-, and season-matched controls from 8 prospective cohort studies. Overall, neither low nor high concentrations of circulating 25(OH)D were significantly associated with kidney cancer risk. Although the data showed a statistically significant decreased risk for females (odds ratio = 0.31, 95% confidence interval: 0.12, 0.85) with 25(OH)D concentrations of > or =75 nmol/L, the linear trend was not statistically significant and the number of cases in this category was small (n = 14). The findings from this consortium-based study do not support the hypothesis that vitamin D is inversely associated with the risk of kidney cancer overall or with renal cell carcinoma specifically.
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