Comparison between the traditional and a rapid screening test for cryoimmunoglobulins detection.

Objectives: A new rapid, automatic, and sensitive screening test useful to detect cryoglobulins in serum samples is proposed.

Design And Methods: The increase of turbidity during the cryoglobulin aggregation was monitored spectrophotometrically in sera from 400 patients with clinical evidence of cryoglobulinemia related disorders and 100 controls. Results were correlated to those obtained by the traditional method.

Effects of alendronate and vitamin D in patients with normocalcemic primary hyperparathyroidism.

Unlabelled: No data on the pharmacological treatment of normocalcemic hyperparathyroidism (NPHPT) are available. We treated 30 NPHPT postmenopausal women with alendronate/cholecalciferol (treated group) or vitamin D alone (control group). Over 1 year, bone mineral density (BMD) increased significantly in treated group, but not in control group.

Nasal lavage CCL24 levels correlate with eosinophils trafficking and symptoms in chronic sino-nasal eosinophilic inflammation.

Objectives: The aim of our study was to measure CCL24 (eotaxin-2) levels in nasal lavage fluid of patients with different forms of sinonasal chronic eosinophilic inflammation to verify the relationship with nasal hypereosinophilia and symptoms.

Methods: Patients with nasal hypereosinophilia were randomly recruited and grouped in persistent allergic rhinitis, non-allergic rhinitis with eosinophilia syndrome (NARES) and chronic rhinosinusitis with polyps. Non rhinitic volunteers were recruited as controls.

NT-proBNP: a marker of preclinical cardiac damage in arterial hypertension.

Background: The cardiac left ventricle responds to pressure overloads with mechanisms culminating in irreversible structural/functional cardiac alterations (left ventricular hypertrophy and/or diastolic dysfunction), inducing myocardial cells to secrete natriuretic peptides (NT-proBNP) antagonists of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system. The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of serum NT-proBNP levels in order to detect structural/functional cardiac diseases assessed by echocardiography.

Methods: A total of 126 consecutive newly diagnosed, never before treated, hypertensive patients (30-67 years) were enrolled, and clinical, echocardiography parameters and biochemical data were collected.

Transient endothelial dysfunction following flow-mediated dilation assessment.

Flow-mediated dilation (FMD) is a widely used tool to investigate endothelial function. However, FMD assessment may cause mechanical damage to the arterial endothelium. In this study we investigated the effect of FMD assessment on endothelial function.