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.     

Severe community-acquired pneumonia due to Legionella pneumophila Serogroup 6.

Legionella pneumophila is a common cause of sporadic community-acquired pneumonia, but culture-proven legionellosis is rarely diagnosed. There is no laboratory test for Legionnaires' disease that can detect all patients with the disease. Culture is the standard diagnostic method and should be initiated as soon as possible in suspected cases. We describe a rare case of community-acquired pneumonia caused by L. pneumophila serogroup 6. A 77-year-old man was admitted to a tertiary care hospital because of high fever, productive cough, and progressive dyspnea. Chest radiography showed bilateral pneumonia, which led to respiratory failure necessitating mechanical ventilatory support. Despite antibiotic therapy, his condition continued to deteriorate and acute renal failure also developed. Urine was negative for L. pneumophila. Culture of the sputum yielded L. pneumophila serogroup 6, although there was no elevation of the serum antibody titer. Pneumonia resolved gradually and he was extubated after treatment with levofloxacin followed by erythromycin. L. pneumophila other than serogroup 1 should be included in the differential diagnosis of patients with suspected atypical community-acquired pneumonia.     

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…     

试论医院药师的业务标准

作者依据医药卫生事业发展对药学人员的要求，在调查了80家综合医院药师工作现状的基础上，提出了药师在调剂、制剂、药品检验、药学科研、药品储存供应、药学综合知识与技能6个方面应具备的业务标准，为我国实行医院药师资格准入控制提供参考。     

表皮生长因子对牛眼小梁细胞c—fos基因表达的诱导

目的研究表皮生长因子（ｅｐｉｄｅｒｍａｌｇｒｏｗｔｈｆａｃｔｏｒ，ＥＧＦ）对小梁细胞的作用。方法应用分子杂交技术研究ＥＧＦ对体外培养的牛眼小梁细胞ｃ－ｆｏｓ基因表达的诱导和３Ｈ胸腺核苷酸（３Ｈ－ｔｈｙｍｉｄｉｎｅｉｎｃｏｒｐａｒａｔｉｏｎ，３Ｈ－ＴｄＲ）掺入法观察细胞ＤＮＡ的合成。结果小梁细胞的３Ｈ－ＴｄＲ掺入率随着ＥＧＦ浓度不同而变化，浓度为２０～１５０ｎｇ／ｍｌ时，细胞掺入率随浓度增加升高（Ｐ＜０．０１）。与对照组相比，ＥＧＦ刺激停止生长的小梁细胞０．５小时后，ｃ－ｆｏｓ基因开始表达，１小时后达高峰，至２小时后消失。不同浓度ＥＧＦ刺激小梁细胞１小时后，ｃ－ｆｏｓ基因表达呈浓度依赖性。结论实验结果表明ＥＧＦ刺激小梁细胞增殖或进入生长状态，可能与ｃ－ｆｏｓ基因产物的信号传递作用有关。     

Evidence that the Receptor for Soluble CD14:LPS Complexes may not be the Putative Signal-Transducing Molecule Associated with Membrane-Bound CD14

Membrane-bound CD14 acts as a receptor for lipopolysaccharide (LPS) on monocytes/macrophages and neutrophils. Studies have suggested that the activation of monocytes/macrophages by the binding of LPS to membrane-bound CD14 may require the association of a signal-transducing molecule with membrane-bound CD14. The observation that non-CD14 expressing cells, such as endothelial cells, can nevertheless be activated by a complex of LPS and a soluble form of CD14 (sCD14) suggests that the receptor for this complex may be identical to the signal transducing molecule associated with membrane-bound CD14. The studies described show that two CD14-specific MoAb are able to block the LPS-induced activation of endothelial cells but do not affect the response of monocytes to LPS. This suggests that the interaction of the sCD14:LPS complex with endothelial cells is distinct from the interaction of membrane-bound CD14 with its putative signal-transducing molecule.     

Existence of Candida albicans and microorganisms in denture stomatitis patients

summary The aetiology of denture stomatitis is not clear from the literature. Some studies show its aetiology as Candida albicans, while other reports point out the significance of microorganisms. In this study the existence of C. albicans and microorganisms was investigated in subjects with and without denture stomatitis. The results showed that a combination of C. albicans and microorganisms is more likely to be responsible for denture stomatitis.