Pediatr Nurs
September 1997
The increasing prevalence of the nuclear family in China challenges the cultural ideal and tradition of the extended family caring for children with chronic illness at home. This study examined and documented the caregiving experiences in a sample of this population of children and their families. A descriptive survey with both quantitative and qualitative questions was developed and used to interview a total of 75 families in three urban areas of China.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA simple, fast, and reliable isocratic (mobile phase: acetonitrile/methanol/water [48/11/41], reverse-phase (C18 column) high-performance liquid chromatography method for the determination of paclitaxel concentration in human serum is presented. The procedure uses a new and convenient one-step sample-purification procedure that requires only 400 microliters of sample and uses N-heptylbenzamide as an internal standard. Paclitaxel is detected by UV absorbance measurement at 227 nm.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhen large numbers of health care staff from different professional groups are involved in the care of individual clients, the need for simple, understandable, uniform casenotes becomes paramount. This article describes how a survey of the different casenotes used by various CPN teams led to the devising of a new system. The aim was to encourage good practice and develop a standardised record-keeping system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: We have previously shown the feasibility of assessing internal thoracic artery (ITA) size and blood flow hemodynamics before and after coronary artery bypass grafting using color-flow duplex ultrasound. This noninvasive method would be an ideal diagnostic tool for the evaluation of ITA graft status after therapeutic interventions in a patient with angina after coronary artery bypass grafting. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of nitroglycerin on the diameter and blood flow velocities of the left native ITA before coronary artery bypass grafting and the ITA graft postoperatively.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn a prospective study over 6 months, the relationship between serum lipid parameters and CsA whole blood trough concentrations was investigated in 39 renal transplant recipients receiving a triple immunosuppressive therapy with cyclosporin (CsA), azathioprine and prednisone. CsA trough concentrations were measured with a selective monoclonal immunoassay (Abbott TDx). Six months after transplantation, significant positive correlations were observed between the CsA trough concentration and serum concentrations of triglycerides (r = 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDrug Metabol Drug Interact
August 1998
Cyclosporin A (CsA) is a cyclic undecapeptide that was first isolated from the fungus Tricoderma polysporum. The introduction of this potent immunosuppressive compound significantly improved the outcome of solid organ and bone marrow allograft transplantation. There is now a large body of accumulated experience in the monitoring of this drug, and several consensus conferences have addressed this issue /1-3/.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To analyze the distribution of apolipoprotein E (Apo E) phenotypes between patients with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) and control subjects.
Setting: University hospital, base of the German National CJD Surveillance Study.
Design: Prospective case-control study.
Ultrasound Obstet Gynecol
November 1996
The study was planned to determine the proportion of parents that wish to know the sex of their fetus at the 20-week anomaly scan, and to investigate our ability to diagnose correctly the sex of the fetus when undertaken as part of a routine scan. A total of 472 patients gave their informed consent. An attempt was made to identify the genitalia as part of the routine scan.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPost-transplant assessment of early graft function has become an essential part of monitoring, especially when deciding on retransplantation. If primary non-function is indicated, retransplantation is inevitable; early graft dysfunction may be related to subsequent complications. In a prospective study in 84 patients after orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) we measured aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), glutamate dehydrogenase (GLDH), bilirubin (BIL), prothrombin time, MEGX formation, hyaluronic acid (HA) and soluble interleukin-2 receptor (sIL-2R) concentrations during the first 2 postoperative weeks; graft outcome was followed over 4 months.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSerum lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)] concentrations and apolipoprotein(a) phenotypes were determined in 46 patients with end-stage renal disease both before as well as 1 week and 1, 3 and 6 months after renal transplantation. Immunosuppressive therapy consisted of cyclosporin A, prednisone and azathioprine. Before transplantation median Lp(a) levels did not differ between the patients and a healthy control group.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe objective of this prospective study was to assess the prognostic value of dynamic and static liver function tests and clinical symptoms in pediatric patients with chronic end-stage liver disease in a serial examination including three evaluations at 3-month intervals. Of the 24 patients entering the study, six were given transplants within the observation period of 10 months. Of the remaining 18 patients who were considered in the final evaluation, five died before transplantation was possible.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe commonly used immunosuppressive regimen after orthotopic heart transplantation consists of cyclosporine (CsA), azathioprine (AZA), and steroids. Although AZA therapy is generally regarded as unproblematic, its use can be associated with severe side effects, particularly myelosuppression. Since AZA is a prodrug, which must first be metabolized to its active metabolites, AZA therapy, in contrast to CsA therapy, cannot be controlled by measuring blood levels of this drug.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe commonly used immunosuppressive regimen after solid organ transplantation consists of cyclosporine A, azathioprine and steroids. Azathioprine, which is known to carry the risk of severe myelosuppression, is catabolized in vivo by xanthine oxidase and thiopurine methyltransferase, an enzyme which exhibits a common genetic polymorphism; 11% of Caucasians are heterozygous and 0.3% are homozygous with respect to thiopurine methyltransferase deficiency.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe ability of the benzoquinone coenzyme Q-10 or its derivative QSA-10 (idebenone) to protect against lipid peroxidation and protein damage mediated by the pro-oxidative system NADPH/ADP/Fe3+ was tested in a rat liver microsomal model incubated in University of Wisconsin (UW) or histidine-tryptophan-ketoglutarate (HTK) solutions. Lipid peroxidation, as followed by direct determination of lipid hydroperoxides and by monitoring of malondialdehyde equivalents, was 1.8-fold enhanced in HTK and 3-fold attenuated in UW compared with HEPES buffer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo evaluate serum apo AI, apo B, Lp(a) and the ratio of unesterified cholesterol to total cholesterol as markers of hepatic synthetic capacity after orthotopic liver transplantation, serial measurements of these variables were performed on post-transplant days 1, 3, 5, 7, 10 and 14 in 70 patients. Liver function was assessed by a quantitative dynamic test based on the hepatic conversion of lidocaine to monoethylglycinexylidide (MEGX). Patients were divided into two groups on the basis of clinical and laboratory findings, those with evidence (n = 46) and those without evidence (n = 24) of hepatic dysfunction.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe prognostic value of a dynamic liver-function test, based on the hepatic conversion of lidocaine to monoethylglycinexylidide (MEGX), in predicting multiple organ failure (MOF) was prospectively investigated in 28 critically ill patients after multiple trauma. The MEGX test and conventional static liver tests (bilirubin, aspartate aminotransferase, glutamate dehydrogenase, and factor V) were performed on days 1, 3, 5, and 7 after trauma. Patients were classified by a modified MOF score into a group without (n = 18) and a group with the MOF syndrome (n = 10).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe well documented association between high plasma levels of lipoprotein(a) (Lp(a)) and cardiovascular disease might be mediated by the lysine binding of apolipoprotein(a) (apo(a)), the plasminogen-like, multikringle glycoprotein in Lp(a). We employed a mutational analysis to localize the lysine-binding domains within human apo(a). Recombinant apo(a) (r-apo(a)) with 17 plasminogen kringle IV-like domains, one plasminogen kringle V-like domain, and a protease domain or mutants thereof were expressed in the human hepatocarcinoma cell line HepG2.
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