A pilot study on potential new plasma markers for diagnosis of acute appendicitis.

Background: Diagnosis of acute appendicitis (AA) remains a surgical dilemma, with negative appendectomy rates of 5% to 40% and perforation suggestive for late operative intervention in 5% to 30%. The aim of this study is to evaluate new plasma markers, representing early neutrophil activation, to improve diagnostic accuracy in patients suspected for AA.

Materials And Methods: Fifty-one patients who underwent surgery for AA were included (male-female = 28:23), and blood was sampled.

Early insulin sensitivity after restrictive bariatric surgery, inconsistency between HOMA-IR and steady-state plasma glucose levels.

Background: The low-grade inflammatory condition present in morbid obesity is thought to play a causative role in the pathophysiology of insulin resistance (IR). Bariatric surgery fails to improve this inflammatory condition during the first months after surgery. Considering the close relation between inflammation and IR, we conducted a study in which insulin sensitivity was measured during the first months after bariatric surgery.

Short-term overfeeding induces insulin resistance in weight-stable patients after bariatric surgery.

Background: Short time overfeeding of rats rapidly leads to insulin resistance (IR). A study with healthy human volunteers, which we suggest are less susceptible for developing IR after short time overfeeding, did not show these effects on IR. Therefore a study population of weight-stable, former morbidly obese subjects (BMI 31.

Diagnosis of abdominal aortic hypoplasia by state-of-the-art MR angiography.

Abdominal aortic hypoplasia is a rare vascular variant with possible major clinical sequelae when the renal arteries are also involved. The condition is thought to result from embryonic overfusion of the two dorsal aortas. The diagnosis may be considered in patients presenting with hypertension in the neonatal period and severely reduced or absent arterial pulses in the groin.