Among the major challenges of medicine today there are screening and early detection of tumors (since the adenoma stage) in order to prevent their degeneration into malignant cancer and/or ...metastases. In particular, the colorectal cancer shows a high curability rate, up to 90%, if identified when in its benign stage. The Protocol discussed here is proposed to implement the clinical validation of a device consisting of an array of chemoresistive gas sensors made of semiconductor materials, able of identifying the difference between fecal exhalation of healthy subjects and of subjects suffering from high-risk colorectal polyps or tumors. The tests are compared to the results of fecal occult blood test and colonoscopy as a gold standard.
Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are widely used and relatively safe medications. We report here an uncommon case of fluid retention simulating acute congestive heart failure, secondary to ...aspirin consumption, promptly reversible after discontinuation of therapy, and triggered again by pharmacological challenge test.
Pulmonary hypertension is rarely described in association with Sjögren's syndrome. The authors report the case of a patient in which pulmonary hypertension was the inaugural clinical manifestation of ...primary Sjögren's syndrome. Clinical assessment, differential diagnosis, etiopathological implications, and therapeutic approach are discussed.
The aim of this study was to determine whether the time of occurrence of sudden death exhibits a circadian rhythm depending on its different anatomoclinical causes. A longitudinal prospective ...investigation of 610 nonhospitalized subjects who died suddenly in the Emergency Room of Ferrara Hospital between January 1983 and December 1990 was conducted. All subjects underwent autopsy. Sudden death was classified on the basis of the following pathological causes; acute myocardial infarction, acute myocardial failure, intracerebral hemorrhage, rupture of aortic aneurysm, pulmonary embolism, and clinical causes, i.e., arrhythmia and circulatory failure. The investigated cases were stratified into 2 groups according to age; Group A=age<70 years (n=301, 49.3%), and Group B=age≥70 (n=309, 51.7%). The assessment of circadian rhythmicity was performed utilizing the single cosinor method.The results by cosinor analysis found a circadian rhythmicity for cases of sudden death (peak at 14.04, n=610, p=0.036), and in particular for females (peak at 13.12, n=200, p=0.004). Spectral analysis detected a statistical ultradian cycle in males having an 8-hour period (p=0.015). A statistically significant circadian rhythm was found for cases of sudden death due to acute myocardial infarction (peak at 15.28, n=330, p=0.013), pulmonary embolism (peak at 11.46, n=56, p=0.003) and arrhythmia (peak at 13.08, n=291, p=0.04). In Group A no significant circadian rhythm was found, whereas in Group B a significant rhythmicity was found for sudden death from cardiac causes at 13.32 (n=249, p=0.015), from myocardial infarction at 15.02 (n=154, p=0.018) and from arrhythmia at 13.07 (n=122, p=0.014). Different circadian patterns of onset of sudden death may be shown in various subgroups of patients, due not only to different pathophysiologic mechanisms but also to anatomo-clinical aspects.
Published studies have indicated a circadian variation in the occurrence of several acute cardiovascular events, e.g., myocardial ischemia, myocardial infarction, sudden cardiac death and cardiac ...arrest. The aim of this study was to determine if there is a circadian variation in the occurrence of fatal pulmonary embolism, and to evaluate possible differences in the temporal pattern in relation to sex and age. 230 cases of fatal pulmonary embolism (74 out-of-hospital and 156 hospitalized) observed in a general hospital over a 9-year period were considered. The total sample was stratified both by sex and into four groups by age including, respectively, subjects aged less than 60 years (group A), between 60 and 69 (group B), between 70 and 79 (group C) and 80 years and over (group D). The data were analyzed by the single cosinor method.A significant morning pattern was found for the total population (p=0.011), females (p=0.033), and age subgroups C and D (p=0.015 and 0.008), with respective acrophases at 11.57, 11.23, 10.54 and 13.24. A morning pattern in the onset of fatal pulmonary embolism is confirmed for the total population, although sex and age seem also to play an important role.
Out of 20 subjects selected for refractory arrhythmias, amiodarone therapy (200mg/day) was efficacious in 85%. No statistically significant variations in electrocardiographic parameters (QTc) were ...observed; similarly, there was little evidence of side effects 1 year after initiation of treatment. These results were most likely due to the low daily dosage administered. We observed: 1) a significant increase in rT3 levels; 2) a decrease in TT3; 3) a uniform homeostasis of free fraction (FT3; FT4) These effects are all characteristic patterns of a "Low T3 Syndrome". The dosage of circulating amiodarone in 6 patients with borderline hormonal status (3 hyper-and 3 hypothyroidism) was not found to be an efficacious test for therapeutic monitoring. Identification of a statistically significant linear regression relationship between cumulative dose of amiodarone and rT3 levels may be a useful test in clinical practise for establishing more appropriate therapeutic dosages. Furthermore, it provides a guideline for threshold levels (maximum rT3=100-110ng/dl) which are in close association with several side effects.
Scientific programming Barone, Luciano M; Marinari, Enzo; Organtini, Giovanni ...
2013., 2013-07-26, c2013
eBook
The book teaches a student to model a scientific problem and write a computer program in C language to solve that problem. To do that, the book first introduces the student to the basics of C ...language, dealing with all syntactical aspects, but without the pedantic content of a typical programming language manual. Then the book describes and discusses many algorithms commonly used in scientific applications (e.g. searching, graphs, statistics, equation solving, Monte Carlo methods etc.). This important book fills a gap in current available bibliography. There are many manuals for programming in C, but they never explain programming technicalities to solve a given problem. This book illustrates many relevant algorithms and shows how to translate them in a working computer program.
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