Treatment of the Breast’s Lateral Pole: Adjuvant Maneuver to Pitanguy’s Technique

Surgical procedures for the mammary region currently are assuming an important role in body-contouring surgery. Enhancement of results is a constant challenge to the plastic surgeon. A simple and efficient maneuver for resection of the breast’s lateral pole based on the mammoplasty technique of Professor Ivo Pitanguy is described. This study realized at the Private Clinic Sérgio Carreir?o, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.     

Differential effects of within-day continuous vs. transient dopamine D2 receptor occupancy in the development of vacuous chewing movements (VCMs) in rats.

Accumulating evidence suggests that antipsychotics (APs) that lead to sustained blockade of dopamine D(2) receptors are more likely to induce acute extrapyramidal side effects (EPS) compared to APs that only occupy D(2) receptors transiently. It is unclear, however, whether a similar relationship exists for long-term AP-induced motoric side effects like tardive dyskinesia (TD). The objective of this study was to ascertain whether transient (via daily subcutaneous (s.c.) injections) vs continuous (via osmotic minipump) AP-induced D(2) receptor occupancy differentially affects the development of haloperidol-induced vacuous chewing movements (VCMs), an animal model of TD. Six groups of 12 rats received 0.1, 0.25, or 1 mg/kg of haloperidol or vehicle (n=36) via osmotic minipump (to provide within-day sustained) or daily s.c. injection (within-day transient) for 8 weeks. VCMs were measured on a weekly basis and D(2) occupancy levels were measured in vivo using [(3)H]-raclopride at the end of the experiment. Minipump-treated rats developed HAL dose-dependent D(2) occupancies of 0.1 mg/kg/day (57%), 0.25 mg/kg/day (70%), and 1 mg/kg/day (88%). S.C.-treated rats also developed HAL dose-dependent D(2) occupancies of 0.1 mg/kg/day (83% peak, 3% trough), 0.25 mg/kg/day (89% peak, 0% trough), and 1 mg/kg/day (94% peak, 17% trough). A total of 43% of rats given 0.25 and 1 mg/kg/day of HAL via minipump developed high VCMs compared to only 8% of the rats given the same doses via daily s.c. injections. The 0.1 mg/kg dose did not give rise to VCMs beyond vehicle levels regardless of the route of administration. These findings support the contention that D(2) occupancy levels induced by chronic HAL must be high and sustained through the day before significant risk of VCMs, and perhaps also TD, emerges.     

Evaluation of bone height and bone density after tooth extraction: an experimental study in minipigs.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to radiographically quantify bone density and bone height preservation in tooth extraction alveolus filled with xenograft. STUDY DESIGN: The maxillary and mandibular fourth deciduous molars and fourth premolars of 6 minipigs were removed. Randomly, in 3 animals the right side was used as the test side and in the other 3 animals the left side was the test side. Intraoral radiographs were performed to compare the condition at the initial time and 3 months later. Measurements of bone height and bone density were performed using KS300 (Zeiss) software. RESULTS: After 3 months, there was a statistically significant smaller bone height loss for the test group. The test group presented a statistically greater bone density immediately after tooth extraction. However, after 3 months there was no statistically significant difference between the groups. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that treatment of postextraction alveolus with xenograft can preserve bone height initially but differences in bone density compared to when no xenograft is used are not sustained.     

Factors associated with mortality and functional disability after hip fracture: an inception cohort study

Hip fracture results in excess mortality and functional disability. This study sought to identify predictors of mortality and limited functional ability 1 year after hip fracture. We conducted a 1-year follow-up of a prospective population-based inception cohort of 218 hip fracture patients who had been consecutively admitted and discharged from hospital during the previous year. Mortality was observed to be independently associated with poor mental status (relative risk [RR]=6.96; 95% confidence interval [95% CI], 1.73–28.00), prefracture limited functional ability (RR=4.35; 95% CI, 1.32–14.36), institutionalized disposition at discharge (RR=2.92; 95% CI, 1.02–8.38), and male gender (RR=2.44; 95% CI, 1.01–5.93). Independent predictors of limited functional ability were prefracture functional disability (RR=34.14; 95% CI, 3.13–372.33), poor mental status (RR=9.71; 95% CI, 1.57–59.82), age >80 years (RR=4.03; 95% CI, 1.48–11.00), and female gender (RR=3.57; 95% CI, 0.08–0.98). On discharge, special attention and care should thus be given to all patients displaying any of the above predictive factors.     

A principal components analysis self-organizing map.

We propose a new self-organizing neural model that performs principal components analysis. It is also related to the adaptive subspace self-organizing map (ASSOM) network, but its training equations are simpler. Experimental results are reported, which show that the new model has better performance than the ASSOM network.     

Lung Cancer and COPD: a Common Combination

Background and objectiveTo analyse frequency, characteristics and patient survival with lung cancer (LC) and Common Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), comparing them with patients that do not have COPD.Material and methodsA retrospective study, of patients diagnosed by means of cytohistology. Survival was estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method. Statistical analysis was carried out using SPSS 15.0.ResultsA total of 996 patients were diagnosed, 39.8% with COPD. Mean age70±9.19 years. GOLD stages: I 18.2%, II 53.6%, III 24%, IV 4.2%. The histological types: squamous cell carcinoma 48.2%, adenocarcinoma 22%, and small cell carcinoma 22.5%. Survival was longer in the COPD group.ConclusionsLC and COPD are combined in 39.8%. Squamous cell type is more frequent and survival was longer in the COPD group.