Effectiveness of early orthodontic treatment with the Twin-block appliance: a multicenter, randomized, controlled trial. Part 1: Dental and skeletal effects.

This study evaluated the effectiveness of early orthodontic treatment with the Twin-block appliance for the developing Class II Division 1 malocclusion. This multicenter trial was carried out in the United Kingdom. A total of 174 children, aged 8 to 10 years old, with Class II Division 1 malocclusion were randomly allocated to receive treatment with a Twin-block appliance or to an untreated, control group. Data were collected at the start of the study and 15 months later. Results showed that early treatment with Twin-block appliances resulted in reduction of overjet, correction of molar relationships, and reduction in severity of malocclusion. Most of this correction was due to dentoalveolar change, but some was due to favorable skeletal change. Early treatment with the Twin-block appliance is effective in reducing overjet and severity of malocclusion. The small change in the skeletal relationship might not be considered clinically significant.     

Acute and chronic hemodynamic effects of xamoterol in mild to moderate congestive heart failure.

Xamoterol, a new beta 1 partial agonist, has the potential to modulate cardiac response to variations in sympathetic tone in patients with heart failure. Its properties should result in beta-receptor stimulatory effects at low levels of sympathetic tone and beta-receptor protective effects at higher levels of sympathetic tone. The acute effects of intravenous (i.v.) xamoterol on hemodynamics at rest and during exercise were studied in 30 patients with mild to moderate heart failure (13 patients in New York Heart Association class II; 17 in class III) due to ischemic (n = 24) or cardiomyopathic (n = 6) heart disease. Cardiac index, stroke volume and stroke work index at rest were significantly improved after i.v. administration of xamoterol and consistent with net agonist effects. During exercise, heart rate and double product were significantly reduced (net antagonist effects), but with preservation of the expected increases in cardiac index and systolic blood pressure. These hemodynamic findings confirm the ability of xamoterol to modulate cardiac response to variations in sympathetic tone. Tachyphylaxis and arrhythmogenicity limit the chronic use of drugs with full beta-agonist properties as positive inotropes in heart failure. The patients were therefore entered into a 6-month double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study of chronic oral xamoterol therapy, 200 mg twice daily, and the hemodynamic responses to i.v. xamoterol were repeated at the end of the trial. No impairment in either resting or exercise effects was observed, indicative of a maintained response and absence of tachyphylaxis after chronic therapy. Furthermore, 24-hour ambulatory electrocardiographic monitoring showed no change in ventricular arrhythmias during oral treatment.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Influence of complement on sperm motility

Isolated sperm from normo-, oligo- and astheno-spermic men were incubated for 20 h in medium supplemented with 8% heat-inactivated or untreated human serum, and in medium with heated or untreated serum deficient in complement factor C3. Before and after incubation, sperm motility was assessed by means of a computer-assisted semen analyser. The results did not show significant differences between the motility of sperm incubated in heated or untreated serum. It is concluded that heating of homologous serum is not necessary for preserving sperm motility and in some cases may even be disadvantageous.     

Minimum distinguishable difference in concentration: a clinically oriented translation of assay precision summaries.

A trend to market-driven health care in many parts of the world is focusing increasing attention on getting maximum value from available resources. Laboratories are not exempted. Well-informed clinical input has a potentially valuable role in any laboratory rationalization process. However, a communication difficulty exists in the sense that, although laboratory workers, commercial developers, regulatory bodies, etc., are thoroughly conditioned to using assay coefficient of variation as a general performance measure (for excellent reasons), this is not necessarily the most intuitive or informative scale from a clinician's perspective. Here we use routine clinical data from an immunoradiometric assay of thyrotropin to illustrate, first, a general approach to estimation and prediction of reproducibility, and second, an alternative summary that expresses the discriminatory power of an assay. This latter measure, our experience suggests, is more suited to the way clinicians perceive assays and assay results. The overall aim is improved clinician/laboratory communication.