Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the highest cause of death globally with more people dying annually from it than from any other cause. CVD is associated with modifiable risk factors (dyslipidaemia, hypertension and diabetes) and treating each of these factors lowers the risk of CVD. It is impossible to estimate the benefit of risk factor modification in the individual patient and extrapolating data from multiple trials is difficult.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Since its approval, the use of alteplase had been limited to patients aged ≤80 years.
Aims: TESPI trial had been designed to evaluate whether alteplase treatment within 3 h in patients with acute ischemic stroke aged >80 years resulted in favorable benefit/risk ratio compared with standard care. The meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials was updated to put findings in the context of all available evidence.
Background: The National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) is the most widespread clinical scale used in patients presenting with acute stroke. The merits of the NIHSS include simplicity, quickness, and agreement between clinicians. The clinical evaluation on posterior circulation stroke remains still a limit of NIHSS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Intravenous thrombolysis is an effective treatment in acute stroke patients, but it increases the risk of intracerebral hemorrhages. Our aim is to establish if fibrinogen depletion increases the risk of intracerebral hemorrhage after intravenous thrombolysis for acute ischemic stroke.
Methods: In 104 ischemic stroke patients, treated with intravenous thrombolysis, we assessed the rate of intracerebral hemorrhages documented by computed tomographic scan at 24 hours and within 7 days post-treatment.
J Cardiovasc Med (Hagerstown)
December 2012
Three models of different stent designs implanted in a cerebral aneurysm, originating from the Virtual Intracranial Stenting Challenge '07, are meshed and the flow characteristics simulated using commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software in order to investigate the effects of non-Newtonian viscosity and pulsatile flow. Conventional mass inflow and wall shear stress (WSS) output are used as a means of comparing the CFD simulations. In addition, a WSS distribution is presented, which clearly discriminates in favour of the stent design identified by other groups.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Virtual Intracranial Stenting Challenge 2007 (VISC'07) is becoming a standard test case in computational minimally invasive cerebrovascular intervention. Following views expressed in the literature and consistent with the recommendations of a report, the effects of non-Newtonian viscosity and pulsatile flow are reported. Three models of stented cerebral aneurysms, originating from VISC'07 are meshed and the flow characteristics simulated using commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Plast Reconstr Aesthet Surg
December 2009
The vascular architecture within a perforator flap is different from a conventional muscle or myocutaneous flap. The purpose of this paper is to understand the correlation between flow rate and flap size in perforator flaps. With extrapolation of these data, we have provided an indirect analysis of the venous drainage and its correlation with flap size.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of periarticular injection of hyaluronate into shoulders with supraspinatus tendinosis under echographic guide.
Methods And Materials: The subjects were 56 patients with clinical, echographic and magnetic resonance diagnosis of supraspinatus tendinosis. They were divided in two groups by random sampling; 28 patients were assigned in SH group (sodium hyaluronate) and 28 patients in SC group (sodium chloride).
Wernicke encephalopathy (WE) is a rare but known complication of severe hyperemesis gravidarum caused by thiamine deficiency. This article presents an unusual case that occurred at our institution and reviews the 48 previously published cases of WE in pregnancy. Considering all the 49 cases, the mean (+/-standard deviation) patients' age was 26.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry
December 2004
Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic with complex actions on the CNS. We investigated here the effects of ketamine anesthesia on somatosensory processing in the rat spinal cord, thalamus, and cerebral cortex, using the quantitative 2-deoxyglucose mapping technique. Unanesthetized or ketamine-anesthetized male Sprague-Dawley rats received a s.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe behavioral response to acute tissue injury is usually characterized by different phases, but the brain mechanisms underlying changes in pain-related behavior over time are still poorly understood. We aimed to analyze time-dependent changes in metabolic activity levels of 49 forebrain structures in the formalin pain model, using the autoradiographic 2-deoxyglucose method in unanesthetized, freely moving rats. We examined rats during the first phase of pain-related reactions ('early' groups), or during the third recovery phase, 60 min later, when the supraspinally mediated behavioral responses were reduced ('late' group).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCNS correlates of acute prolonged pain, and the effects of partial blockade of the central beta-endorphin system, were investigated by the quantitative 2-deoxyglucose technique in unanaesthetized, freely moving rats. Experiments were performed during the second, tonic phase of the behavioural response to a prolonged chemical noxious stimulus (s.c.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTime-related changes in oculomotor function and of metabolic activity patterns in selected brain networks, as assessed by the quantitative 2-deoxyglucose technique, were investigated in Long-Evans rats following intraperitoneal administration of a ketamine anesthetic dose. During ketamine-induced anesthesia a nystagmic-like behavior was present, characterized by uni-directional slow ocular drifts with superimposed paroxystic bursts of quick (saccadic-like) eye movements; all quick movements were executed in the horizontal direction, were strictly confined to an ocular hemifield of vision, and were followed by a backward (centripetal) drift. A metabolic hyperactivity was found in the dorso-medial shoulder region of the frontal cortex, corresponding to the rat saccadic cortical generator area, whereas functional activity levels were decreased in cerebellum and in several brainstem regions, including portions of the reticular formation and medial vestibular nuclei, putatively indicated as the locus of the oculomotor neural integrator.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAzathioprine (AZA) has a slight but consistent effect on clinical outcome in multiple sclerosis (MS), but very few data are available on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) changes. We performed a retrospective study aimed to quantify changes of lesion load in two serial proton density weighted MRI sequences (TR 2500, TE 30, 1.5 T) at a mean interval of 2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBefore 1975 the multiple sclerosis (MS) prevalence rate in Italy ranged from 4 to 21 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. In more recent studies the MS prevalence rate exceeded 30 cases per 100,000. We decided to perform an epidemiological survey in the province of Modena, Northern Italy, in order to clarify whether Italy should be considered as an area at high risk for MS like the countries of continental Europe.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSubcutaneous injection of a dilute formaldehyde solution (5 or 10%) into a hind paw induced, in the majority of rats, the appearance of 'mirror pain': licking the contralateral untreated hind paw 10-60 min after injection. Contralateral licking activity was much less frequent than the ipsilaterally directed one, but the overall intensities of the two responses were positively correlated. Qualitatively, the two behaviours were similar.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe have investigated the effects of propofol anaesthesia on the metabolic activity pattern of 35 regions of the rat brain and cervical spinal cord using the 14C-2-deoxyglucose technique. Anaesthesia was produced by an i.v.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFunctional activity changes in 35 selected structures of the rat brainstem elicited by subcutaneous formalin injection in a forepaw were investigated by the [14C]2-deoxyglucose method in unanesthetized, freely moving animals. Experiments were initiated 2 min ("early" group) or 60 min ("late" group) after the injection. Treatment induced a significant increase of [14C]2-deoxyglucose uptake relative to controls in 17 structures of the "early" group, including portions of the bulbar, pontine and mesencephalic reticular formation, nucleus raphe magnus, median and dorsal raphe nuclei, the ventrolateral and dorsal subdivisions of the periaqueductal gray matter, deep layers of the superior colliculus and the anterior pretectal nucleus.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe functional activity pattern in the cervical enlargement of the spinal cord (as expressed by changes in local glucose utilization) was investigated by the semi-quantitative [14C]2-deoxyglucose technique 2 min ("early" group) or 60 min ("late" group) after injection of a small amount of dilute formalin (0.06-0.08 ml, 5%) in a forepaw of unanesthetized, freely-moving rats.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Cereb Blood Flow Metab
December 1987
The effects of an anesthetic dose (100 mg/kg) of ketamine, a phencyclidine derivative, on local rates of cerebral glucose utilization (LCGU) and CBF (LCBF) have been investigated by the quantitative [14C]2-deoxy-glucose and [14C]iodoantipyrine techniques in the unparalyzed, spontaneously breathing rat. In ketamine-injected animals, LCGU was significantly increased in some limbic structures and decreased in inferior colliculus, vestibular, and cerebellar nuclei. The degree and spatial distribution of drug-induced changes was similar for local blood flow rates, LCBF being increased in limbic regions and decreased in the inferior colliculus.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Neurosci Methods
September 1984
A general purpose image processing system is described including B/W TV camera, high resolution image processor and display system (TESAK VDC 501), computer (DEC PDP 11/23), and monochrome and color monitors. Images may be acquired from a microscope equipped with a TV camera or using the TV in direct viewing; the A/D converter and the image processor provides fast (40 ms) and precise (512 X 512 data points) digitization of TV signal with a 256 gray levels maximum resolution. Computer programs have been developed in order to perform qualitative and quantitative analyses of autoradiographs obtained with the 2-DG method, which are written in FORTRAN and MACRO 11 Assembly Language.
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