The effect of periodontal therapy on neopterin and vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 levels in chronic periodontitis patients with and without acute myocardial infarction: a case-control study.

Unlabelled: The presence of neopterin in gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) is a marker for local and acute immune activation, and the presence of vascular cell adhesion molecule (VCAM-1) in GCF is accepted as a marker for chronic vascular inflammation.

Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate effects of periodontal treatment on GCF levels of neopterin and VCAM-1 in patients with chronic periodontitis (CP) with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) compared with systemically healthy CP patients.

Material And Methods: Sixty subjects (20 CP patients with AMI, 20 healthy CP patients, and 20 healthy controls) were included.

Methimazole has no dose-related effect on the intensity of the intrathyroidal autoimmune process in relapsing Graves' disease.

Declining thyroid autoantibodies during treatment and decreased lymphocytic infiltration after treatment of patients with Graves' disease suggest immunosuppressive actions of antithyroid drugs. However, the recent report of similar relapse rates after low and high dose carbimazole treatment of Graves' disease seems to contradict the immunosuppression thesis. We therefore determined the intrathyroidal methimazole concentrations with a high performance liquid chromatography method in 17 patients undergoing subtotal thyroid resection for relapsing Graves' disease.

[Beta-carotene, vitamin A and carrier proteins in thyroid diseases].

The conversion of beta-carotene (provitamin A) to 2 molecules of vitamin A (retinol) is accelerated by thyroxine and hyperthyroidism, respectively. The characteristic yellow tint of the skin in hypothyroidism is due to hyper-beta-carotenemia. Both in hyper- and hypothyroidism in a retinol deficiency has been observed in literature.

Dissociation-enhanced lanthanide fluorescence immunoassay of lipoprotein(a) in serum.

Lipoprotein(a), a human serum lipoprotein structurally related to low-density lipoprotein (LDL), contains in addition to apolipoprotein B (apo B) apolipoprotein(a) [apo(a)], a glycoprotein with a strong homology to plasminogen. Lp(a) is a risk factor for coronary heart disease and ischemic cerebrovascular disease. Several immunological techniques are used to quantify Lp(a) in human serum, including radioimmunoassays, rocket immunoelectrophoresis, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays.

[New organ-preserving technics for third-grade splenic trauma. An experimental study].

We studied two new techniques for orthotopic preservation of the spleen in an animal model with respect to their technical feasibility and their hemostatic efficacy. This study was performed in two stages. In the first, the treatment of central bursting ruptures by splenorrhaphy using a resorbable compressive mesh was tested.