Cognitive performance associated with self-care activities in Mexican adults with type 2 diabetes.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of memory-learning on self-care activities in adults with type 2 diabetes moderated by previous education/understanding in diabetes and to explore the explicative capacity of age, gender, schooling, diabetes duration, and glycemic control in memory-learning.

Methods: A descriptive correlational study was conducted in a randomized sample of 105 Mexican adult patients with type 2 diabetes at a community-based outpatient clinic. Evaluation measures included the Wechsler Memory Scale for memory-learning; 2 questionnaires for self-care activities and previous education/understanding in diabetes, respectively; and glycosylated hemoglobin for glycemic control.

Diabetic myonecrosis in a patient with hepatic cirrhosis: a case report and review of the literature.

Introduction: Diabetic myonecrosis was first reported by Angervall and Stener in 1965. In its classical clinical expression, it affects type 1 diabetes mellitus patients with long-standing poor metabolic control and advanced chronic microvascular complications. A sudden-onset of severe pain in the region of the involved muscle, usually the quadriceps, is the typical clinical manifestation.

[Delays in the arrival of patients with subarachnoid haemorrhage at a tertiary hospital].

Introduction: Patients with subarachnoid haemorrhage should be referred to a tertiary hospital as early as possible. The aim of this research was to study how long these patients take to reach a tertiary care centre in Havana.

Patients And Methods: We conducted a prospective study of patients with subarachnoid haemorrhage who were admitted to the Stroke Unit at the Hospital Hermanos Ameijeiras between January 2005 and December 2007.

[Does the incorporation of a virtual simulator improve abilities in endoscopic surgery acquired with an inanimate simulator?].

Introduction: The carrying out of training courses in surgical endoscopy for surgeons in training centres, is becoming more common. In addition to adequately planning activities, simulation systems are used to improve learning and monitor progression. Inanimate models and virtual reality programs increase psychomotor skills and assessment of performance.

Liver cirrhosis and diabetes: risk factors, pathophysiology, clinical implications and management.

About 30% of patients with cirrhosis have diabetes mellitus (DM). Nowadays, it is a matter for debate whether type 2 DM in the absence of obesity and hypertriglyceridemia may be a risk factor for chronic liver disease. DM, which develops as a complication of cirrhosis, is known as "hepatogenous diabetes".

Androgenetic alopecia and insulin resistance in young men.

Background: Epidemiological studies have associated androgenetic alopecia (AGA) with severe young-age coronary artery disease and hypertension, and linked it to insulin resistance. We carried out a case-control study in age- and weight-matched young males to study the link between AGA and insulin resistance using the homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) index or metabolic syndrome clinical manifestations.

Methods: Eighty young males, 18-35 years old, with AGA > or = stage III in the Hamilton-Norwood classification, and 80 weight- and age-matched controls were included.

[Obesity in the history of surgery].

Obesity is a problem that is reaching epidemic proportions throughout the world and bariatric surgery is now a rapidly growing technique. However existence of obesity in humans has been recognized for thousands of years, as statues dating from the Stone Age period appear to provide the earliest depictions. Hippocrates (466-355 b.

Model for end stage of liver disease (MELD) is better than the Child-Pugh score for predicting in-hospital mortality related to esophageal variceal bleeding.

Aim: The Child Pugh and MELD are good methods for predicting mortality in patients with chronic liver disease. We investigated their performance as risk factors for failure to control bleeding, in-hospital overall mortality and death related to esophageal variceal bleeding episodes.

Methods: From a previous collected database, 212 cirrhotic patients with variceal bleeding admitted to our hospital were studied.

Value of clinical criteria to indicate a CT-FNA in the diagnosis of infected acute pancreatitis.

Objective: To assess the value of clinical criteria in detecting pancreatic infection (PI) on or after the seventh day of acute pancreatitis attack (AP).

Methods: We determined as clinical criteria of suspicion of PI (SPI): the presence, persistence or recurrence of fever > or = 38 degrees C, leukocytosis > or = 12,000/mm3 and organ failure (OF) in the absence of extrapancreatic infection. Patients with SPI criteria underwent computed tomography - fine needle aspiration (CT-FNA), if CT-FNA was negative and SPI criteria for 72 hours CT-FNA was repeated.

[Pituitary adenomas invading the cavernous sinus. Transcranial transcavernous approach].

Unlabelled: Pituitary adenomas represent a significant proportion (+o-13%) of all intracranial tumors. Surgical treatment is as rule performed by transsphenoidal approach. However, a small but not insignificant subgroup of pituitary adenomas (5 to 7%) invade the lateral parasellar structures and the cavernous sinus in particular, and poses obvious problems to the therapeutic strategy, since transsphenoidal removal of these adenomas is usually incomplete.

[Complications of surgical resection of esophageal cancer].

Esophageal resection has undergone refinements over recent years, with improved outcomes. However, in-hospital mortality remains above 10% in developed countries and is below 5% in only a select group of hospitals. Morbidity remains high even in high-volume hospitals.

[Transsphenoidal approach to prolactinomas].

Introduction: Transeptal transsphenoidal surgery for pituitary tumors is a well established surgical technique. In particular the use of medical treatment in patient with prolactinomas has induced the control of hiperprolactinemia and the shrinkage of the tumor in the great majority of the patients, for that reason the treatment of the prolactinomas is controversial.

Objective: We evaluate the results of transsphenoidal microsurgical treatment of prolactin secreting adenomas at our Unit.

[Transnasal-transsphenoidal endoscopic surgery of the sellar region].

Unlabelled: Transnasal transsphenoidal endoscopic approach to the sella turcica has recently become an option to the pituitary surgery which could predominate in a near future.

Objectives: To evaluate through the analysis of our results whether it is possible to perform in our Hospital the endoscopic transnasal transsphenoidal approach to the sella with results at least as good as those we obtain with the microscopic sublabial transseptal transsphenoidal approach.

Material And Methods: As the first stage of a three stage randomized trial, this is a prospective study of 10 patients operated on, using transnasal transsphenoidal endoscopic approach between august 2002 and August 2003 at the department of neurosurgery of "Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital".

Preliminary results of 3D dose calculations with MCNP-4B code from a SPECT image.

Interface software was developed to generate the input file to run Monte Carlo MCNP-4B code from medical image in Interfile format version 3.3. The software was tested using a spherical phantom of tomography slides with known cumulated activity distribution in Interfile format generated with IMAGAMMA medical image processing system.

Patients with osteoporosis prefer once weekly to once daily dosing with alendronate.

Objectives: Once weekly dosing of alendronate has been shown to provide equivalent efficacy to once daily dosing for treatment of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women. Whether patients will prefer weekly dosing to daily dosing for a chronic condition such as osteoporosis has not been studied. The aim of this international study was to assess preference for the weekly or daily dosing regimen of alendronate among postmenopausal women with osteoporosis.

A study of the movements of the human temporomandibular joint complex in the cadaver.

The objective of this study was to define the movements in the sagittal plane of the articular disk relative to the temporal bone and the mandibular condyle respectively, on jaw-opening in the absence of loads. Four temporomandibular joints from two human cadavers were used as materials in the study. Ten steel needles were placed in the lateral plane.