Dysfunctional vasa vasorum in diabetic peripheral artery obstructive disease with critical lower limb ischaemia.

Objectives And Design: To establish whether in diabetic patients with peripheral artery obstructive disease (PAOD) vasa vasorum (vv) neoangiogenesis is altered with increased arterial damage.

Materials: Thirty-three patients with PAOD and critical lower limb ischaemia, 22 with type II diabetes.

Methods: Immunohistochemistry for endothelial cell markers (CD34 and von Willebrand Factor); real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to quantify arterial wall expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF); enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to assess blood VEGF; flow cytometry to detect circulating endothelial cells (CECs).

A controlled study of transitional day care for non-chronically-ill patients.

The authors randomly assigned 79 inpatients with nonchronic schizophrenia or affective disorder to either an intensive experimental day program called "transitional treatment" or a control treatment--weekly clinically believed to require intensive posthospital treatment to make the transition to the community. Although initially there was a significantly higher dropout rate from the control condition, at the point of discharge from the two programs as well as at 6- and 12-month follow-up there was no difference in outcome. Direct costs for the transitional treatment, however, were much higher.