Argon laser treatment of pterygium

The effectiveness of argon laser therapy on pterygium management as a primary modality and as adjunctive therapy to surgery was assessed. Twelve pterygia were surgically excised, 18 pterygia were treated with surgical excision followed by argon laser therapy, and 11 primary pterygia received argon laser alone. A statistically significant difference, was found between pretreatment and post-treatment sizes of pterygia in all groups. At 24-month follow-up, no pterygia in the laser group showed fibrovascular growth over 1 mm.     

Rapid information processing and concomitant event-related brain potentials in smokers differing in CO absorption

The present study relates subject-paced rapid information processing to different components of event-related brain potentials in an attempt to gain more information about changes in mental performance in relation to alveolar smoke absorption as assessed by expired air CO measurement. The task consisted in the presentation of pseudorandom sequences of single digits, and the subjects had to respond to each sequence of three odd or three even digits. The triplets evoked a typical late negativity in the event-related potential between the second and third digit as well as a P300 component following the third digit. In 21 smokers, task performance, event-related potentials and tidal air CO concentration were measured before and after smoking a cigarette. The results revealed increases in performance and P300 magnitude from pre- to postsmoking which were unaffected by the amount of CO absorption. A differential trend was seen, however, with the late negativity, which increased from pre- to postsmoking only in subjects with a large amount of CO absorption. The results support the assumption of the distraction arousal model used as an interpretation of these effects on contingent negative variation and suggest that high CO absorbing smokers possibly depend more on neuropharmacological effects of smoking than smokers with a low amount of CO absorption.     

Lower-extremity deep venous thrombosis after upper-extremity port catheter placement: an unusual complication

We describe the case of a woman with breast carcinoma who experienced deep venous thrombosis of the right lower extremity after placement of a double-lumen central venous chemotherapy port catheter in the left upper extremity. Color Doppler sonography revealed a linear tubular structure within the right common femoral vein and sonographic features of thrombosis, suggesting deep venous thrombosis secondary to displacement of the port catheter.     

The effectiveness of extracorporeal shockwave treatment in subacromial impingement syndrome and its relation with acromion morphology

Objective

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the extracorporeal shock wave therapy in the subacromial impingement syndrome and its relationship with the acromion morphology.

Association of common KIBRA variants with episodic memory and AD risk

KIBRA single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs17070145 was identified in a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of memory performance, with some but not all follow-up studies confirming association of its T allele with enhanced memory. This allele was associated with reduced Alzheimer's disease (AD) risk in 1 study, which also found overexpression of KIBRA in memory-related brain regions of AD. We genotyped rs17070145 and 14 additional SNPs in 2571 late onset Alzheimer's disease (LOAD) patients vs. 2842 controls, including African-Americans. We found significantly reduced risk for rs17070145 T allele in the older African-American subjects (p = 0.007) and a suggestive effect in the older Caucasian series. Meta-analysis of this allele in > 8000 subjects from our and published series showed a suggestive protective effect (p = 0.07). Analysis of episodic memory in control subjects did not identify associations with rs17070145, though other SNPs showed significant associations in 1 series. KIBRA showed evidence of overexpression in the AD temporal cortex (p = 0.06) but not cerebellum. These results suggest a modest role for KIBRA as a cognition and AD risk gene, and also highlight the multifactorial complexity of its genetic associations.     

Left ventricular systolic and diastolic function and carotid intima-media thickness in pediatric dialysis patients

Background  Cardiovascular complications are common in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). We aimed to investigate left ventricular (LV) function and carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT) in children and adolescents with ESRD. Methods  This study included 38 ESRD patients (15 hemodialysis and 23 peritoneal dialysis) and 17 age- and sex-matched healthy subjects. Results  The ESRD patients had significantly lower mean mitral E/A ratio, and higher left ventricular mass index (LVMI) and cIMT than the control group. Compared with PD patients, HD patients had worse LV diastolic function. In stepwise linear regression analysis, LVMI (P = 0.043) and hemoglobin (P = 0.015) turned out to be independent variables for predicting diastolic dysfunction (reduced E/A ratio), and the only significant predictor of cIMT was indexed diastolic blood pressure (DBP) (P = 0.035). Conclusion  Cardiovascular structure and function abnormalities are also common in pediatric dialysis patients, as in adults. Furthermore our data indicated that hemodialysis was disadvantageous for preserving LV diastolic function as compared with peritoneal dialysis.     

Blood volume monitoring to adjust dry weight in hypertensive pediatric hemodialysis patients

The aim of this study was to adjust dry weight by short-term blood volume monitoring (BVM)-guided ultrafiltration and evaluate the effects of optimizing dry weight on blood pressure (BP) control and intradialytic symptoms (IDS) in a group of hypertensive hemodialysis (HD) patients. The study was performed in four sequential phases, each of which lasted for 1 week, on nine hypertensive HD patients (six girls, age 16.9 ± 3.1 years). In phase I, patients were observed by BVM. In phase II, BVM was used to guide ultrafiltration to adjust dry weight. Antihypertensive drugs were gradually tapered or withheld in phase III, when the patients were hypotensive and/or their IDS increased. In phase IV, this particular weight was maintained without any intervention. Pre- and post-HD body weight, pre-HD, post-HD, 30 min after HD casual BP values, and IDS in each HD session were recorded. The BP was also assessed by 44-h ambulatory BP monitoring (ABPM), which is an ideal method to determine BP changes throughout the interdialytic period at the beginning of phase I and at the end of phase IV. There was a decrease in mean dry weight, all casual systolic BPs, and systolic/diastolic ABPM at the end of the study (all p ≤ 0.05). Antihypertensive drugs were stopped in five patients and reduced in two during phase III of the study. The IDS was more frequent (36%) in phase IV than in phase I (16%); however, this increase did not reach statistical significance. The results of this study suggest that short-term BVM guided-ultrafiltration may be a useful tool to diagnose volume overload and to adjust dry weight and, consequently, to achieve a better control of BP in pediatric HD patients.     

Voxel-based morphometry of auditory and speech-related cortex in stutterers

Stutterers demonstrate unique functional neural activation patterns during speech production, including reduced auditory activation, relative to nonstutterers. The extent to which these functional differences are accompanied by abnormal morphology of the brain in stutterers is unclear. This study examined the neuroanatomical differences in speech-related cortex between stutterers and nonstutterers using voxel-based morphometry. Results revealed significant differences in localized grey matter and white matter densities of left and right hemisphere regions involved in auditory processing and speech production.     

Surface topography of zirconia implants does not alter action potentials of isolated rat sciatic nerves

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of airborne-particle abrasion and selective infiltration etching of a yttrium-partially stabilized tetragonal zirconia polycrystal (Y-TZP) implant surfaces on nerve conduction. Particle-abraded Y-TZP (P/Y-TZP), selective infiltration etched Y-TZP (SIE/Y-TZP), and commercially pure titanium (CP-Ti) were used in the study (n = 5).The compound action potentials of the right and left sciatic nerves of eight sacrificed rats were quantified at the in vitro level. The implants were brought into intimate contact with the nerves and the time required for initiation of compound action potentials (TcAP), depolarization (Dp), repolarization (Rp), and amplitude of evoked compound action potentials (cAPs) were recorded before and after contact with the implants. The difference in cAPs between the basal response and after contact with CP-Ti implant was significant (p < 0.05). Time-dependent changes in cAPs of P/Y-TZP and SIE/Y-TZP groups and their basal nerve responses were similar (p > 0.05). Within- and between-subject comparisons revealed that TcAP, Dp, and Rp values for all groups were similar (p > 0.05). Particle-abraded and selective infiltration-etched zirconia implant surfaces do not alter nerve conduction beyond physiologic limits.