Voltammetric determination of blood angiotensin II level

A rapid procedure for determining angiotensin II in the blood by inverse voltammetry using a TA-2 device (Tekhnoanalit Company, Tomsk) with a graphite electrode has been developed. The results of analyses using the proposed technique agree with the clinical data. The rapid analytical procedure favors optimization of cardiotropic drug therapy. __________ Translated from Khimiko-Farmatsevticheskii Zhurnal, Vol. 40, No. 12, pp. 54–56, December, 2006.     

The expression of emotion through nonverbal behavior in medical visits

Relationship-centered care reflects both knowing and feeling: the knowledge that physician and patient bring from their respective domains of expertise, and the physician’s and patient’s experience, expression, and perception of emotions during the medical encounter. These processes are conveyed and reciprocated in the care process through verbal and nonverbal communication. We suggest that the emotional context of care is especially related to nonverbal communication and that emotion-related communication skills, including sending and receiving nonverbal messages and emotional self-awareness, are critical elements of high-quality care. Although nonverbal behavior has received far less study than other care processes, the current review argues that it holds significance for the therapeutic relationship and influences important outcomes including satisfaction, adherence, and clinical outcomes of care.     

Matrix metalloproteinases-2 and -9 in cervical cancer: different roles in tumor progression

The incidence of uterine cervical cancer has increased slightly in Western countries, with an increase in relatively young women. Overexpression of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs)-2 and -9 has turned out as a prognostic factor in many cancers. We compared the expression of the proteins MMP-2 and MMP-9 in cervical primary tumors with clinical outcome and risk factors of cervical cancer. One hundred sixty-one patients with cervical cancer treated in Ume? University Hospital or Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Sweden, between 1991 and 1995 were included in the study. Paraffin-embedded tissue samples obtained prior to treatment were examined immunohistochemically by specific antibodies for MMP-2 and MMP-9. Forty-two percent of the tumors were intensively positive for MMP-2 and 31% for MMP-9. Nineteen percent of the samples were intensively positive for both proteinases and 47% negative or weak for both. Overexpression of MMP-2 seemed to predict unfavorable survival under Kaplan-Meier analysis and in the multivariate analysis. Early sexual activity and low parity seemed to correlate to overexpression of MMP-2. MMP-9 was not associated with survival or sexual behavior. Intensive MMP-9 was noted in grade 1 tumors. We conclude that MMP-2 and MMP-9 have different roles in uterine cervical cancer. MMP-2 could be associated with aggressive behavior, but MMP-9 expression diminishes in high-grade tumors.     

Female pelvic floor. Descriptive anatomy and clinical exploration by transvaginal ultrasound

In order to assess the state and pathology of the woman's pelvis minor, a number of methods are commonly used among practitioners, encompassing clinical exploration, radiology, MRN, urodynamics, endoscopy and echography.

Echography has been poorly used in clinical pelvic exploration and its reliability is actually a matter of controversy 1. However, echographic surveys can provide us with valuable gynecological data on the state and pathologies of the soft pelvis, within the genital regions or even going beyond them, i.e. the rectal channel, bladder, urethra, anus, vascular plexuses, and all of their supporting tissues.

At our research unit, we have been employing Transvaginal Ultrasound echography (TVU) for a long time in conjunction with other pelvis-focused methods in order to study different kinds of pelvic alterations. TVU has proven to be friendly to use, fast, harmless and inexpensive, allowing serial explorations and producing high-quality dynamic images (loop-cinema, video-tape). Furthermore, this method is fairly aseptic in that the occurrence of faeces in the rectal ampolla is not a nuisance but a bonus in tracking the contours of the rectum walls and other topographical features which would be otherwise difficult to survey.

A complete pelvic floor TVU may add no longer than 5-8 minutes to a routine gynecological examination, can be implemented by the general gynecologist and generates data that can be further studied by the appropriate specialist for a more insightful evaluation 2.     

Non-invasive Assessment of Coronary Flow Velocity Reserve: A New Method Using Transthoracic Doppler Echocardiography

Coronary flow reserve (CFR) has been used toassess coronary microcirculation and epicardial coro-nary stenoses[1— 3 ] . CFR is defined as the ratio ofcoronary flow under maximal coronary vasodilatationto coronary flow under resting conditions[4 ] .Whenthe cross- sectional area of epicardial coronary arteriesis constant,coronary flow velocity (CFV) ratios areequal to volume flow ratios.The most common method used clinically formeasuring CFVR is intracoronary Doppler flow(ICD) analysis re…