[The nurse's role in the management of patients with type 2, non-insulin-treated diabetes: the current state in Friuli Venezia Giulia].

Patient education is well known to be an essential aspect in the management of diabetes mellitus. This report aims to provide a general review of nursing care management for patients with diabetes mellitus, in particular non-insulin dependent type 2 diabetes, at either the inpatient or outpatient levels, in Friuli Venezia Giulia. Furthermore, it aims to identify the factors that may be preventing the implementation of adequate diabetes nursing care.

Pegylated interferon and ribavirin in re-treatment of responder-relapser HCV patients.

Background: The re-treatment of patients who relapse after a course of standard interferon and ribavirin with pegylated interferon alfa-2b plus ribavirin is an open issue.

Aims: To evaluate efficacy and safety of treatment with pegylated interferon alfa-2b plus ribavirin and the role of early HCV-RNA assessment as a predictor of sustained response.

Patients: Between May 2001 and December 2002, 242 consecutive patients with chronic hepatitis C were enrolled in an open, regional, multicentre study.

Nutritional surveillance in Tuscany: maternal perception of nutritional status of 8-9 y-old school-children.

Introduction: Overweight and obesity in the developmental age has become a public health problem. For this reason, prevention projects must be developed in advance with the aim to involve not only children, but their parents as well. Our objective is to evaluate the accuracy of the mothers' perceptions of adolescent nutritional status.

A randomized trial of pegylated-interferon-alpha2a plus ribavirin with or without amantadine in the re-treatment of patients with chronic hepatitis C not responding to standard interferon and ribavirin.

Background: There is yet no established treatment for chronic hepatitis C patients non-responder to standard interferon and ribavirin.

Aim: To evaluate efficacy and safety of pegylated-interferon-alpha2a plus ribavirin with or without amantadine in such patients.

Methods: 161 non-responders to standard interferon and ribavirin were randomized into two groups: 81 patients (Group 1) were given weekly Peg-IFN-alpha2a 180 microg plus ribavirin 1,000-1,200 mg/daily for 12 months, 80 patients (Group 2) received weekly Peg-IFN-alpha2a 180 microg plus ribavirin 1,000-1,200 mg/daily and amantadine 200 mg/daily for 12 months.

Differential levels of soluble angiopoietin-2 and Tie-2 in patients with haematological malignancies.

The system involving angiopoietin-2 (Ang-2) and its receptor, Tie-2, appears to play an important role not only in tumor angiogenesis, but also in the biology of haematological and non-haematological malignancies. In the present study we evaluated the serum levels of soluble Ang-2 (sAng-2) and soluble Tie-2 (sTie-2) in patients with haematological malignancies. Measurements were carried out in 15 patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML), 25 with essential thrombocythemia (ET), 24 with multiple myeloma (MM) and six with monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS).

Surveillance of hospital-acquired infections: a model for settings with resource constraints.

Background: Surveillance activities have been considered of paramount importance for effective infection control programs in health care organizations.

Objectives: Our objective was to design a capture system able to assure surveillance of hospital-acquired infections (HAI) in acute hospitals with few resources devoted to infection control.

Methods: We performed 4 biweekly repeated prevalence studies to identify major HAI (urinary tract infections, surgical site infections, lower respiratory tract infection, bloodstream infections) as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) criteria in 3 large hospitals in northeastern Italy (6 internal medicine departments, 5 general surgery departments, 3 intensive care units, and 1 bone marrow transplant unit).

Liver transplantation and recurrent hepatocellular carcinoma: predictive value of nodule size in a retrospective and explant study.

Background: Recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after liver transplantation (LT) remains a major cause of post-LT death.

Methods: To assess which preoperative and postoperative variables were related to recurrence of HCC after LT in patients with cirrhosis and HCC, we evaluated 96 patients with cirrhosis (74 with known HCC and 22 with incidental HCC) who survived more than 1 month after LT.

Results: The median waiting list time was 36 days (range 1-370 days), and the median interval from detection to transplant was 180 days (range 14-1460 days).

Assessing patients' understanding of hepatitis C virus infection and its impact on their lifestyle.

Aims: To assess how much patients with hepatitis C virus infection know about their condition and what impact it has on their lifestyle.

Materials And Methods: A multiple-choice questionnaire was administered anonymously to 364 hepatitis C virus-infected subjects just before their first specialist visit.

Results: Even before hepatitis C virus infection was diagnosed, 257 subjects (70.

First measurement of the transverse spin asymmetries of the deuteron in semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering.

First measurements of the Collins and Sivers asymmetries of charged hadrons produced in deep-inelastic scattering of muons on a transversely polarized 6LiD target are presented. The data were taken in 2002 with the COMPASS spectrometer using the muon beam of the CERN SPS at 160 GeV/c. The Collins asymmetry turns out to be compatible with zero, as does the measured Sivers asymmetry within the present statistical errors.

[Gilles de la Tourette's syndrome: a systematic review].

Gilles de la Tourette's syndrome is more frequent than once believed. This syndrome is a chronic disorder whose long term outcome is generally favourable, characterized by a fluctuating course. The etiopathogenesis of Gilles de la Tourette's syndrome has not been ascertained, although the frontal-subcortical neural pathways seem to be involved.

Survival of cirrhotic patients with early hepatocellular carcinoma treated by percutaneous ethanol injection or liver transplantation.

For "early" hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), surgery, orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) and percutaneous ethanol injection (PEI) improve the natural history of the disease. We performed a retrospective study to evaluate the outcome of patients with cirrhosis and early HCC treated by PEI (n = 417) or OLT (n = 172). Overall, 589 patients with cirrhosis were studied.

Therapy of chronic hepatitis C virus infection in HIV co-infected people.

The introduction of highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) for Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection has significantly improved the life expectancy of HIV positive patients. Hepatitis C virus (HCV) co-infection is common in HIV infected patients and is now a significant cause of morbidity and mortality. Optimal management and treatment of HCV in HIV infected patients is therefore essential.

Physical therapy in Parkinson's disease: an open long-term rehabilitation trial.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of prolonged physical therapy on disability in patients with Parkinson's disease. The study was designed as an open long-term trial over 20 weeks. Twenty slightly to moderately affected parkinsonian patients were included (Hoehn & Yahr stages: 1.

Inadequacy of the new Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma: report of four cases.

Unidimensional Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumor (RECIST) has been recently proposed in the attempt to simplify the standardized bidimensional World Health Organization (WHO) criteria. The complete accord between these two measurement systems was established in a large comparative study [J. Natl.

Microbial mimics are major targets of crossreactivity with human pyruvate dehydrogenase in primary biliary cirrhosis.

Background/aims: Previous studies on patients with primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) have shown extensive cross-reactivity between the dominant B- and T-cell epitopes of human pyruvate dehydrogenase complex-E2 (PDC-E2), and microbial mimics. Such observations have suggested microbial infection as having a role in the induction of anti-mitochondrial antibodies, through a mechanism of molecular mimicry. However the biological significance of these cross-reactivities is questionable, because PDC-E2 is so highly conserved among various species.

Steroid sulphatase inhibitors for breast cancer therapy.

In contrast to aromatase inhibitors, which are now in clinical use, the development of steroid sulphatase (STS) inhibitors for breast cancer therapy is still at an early stage. STS regulates the formation of oestrone from oestrone sulphate (E1S) but also controls the hydrolysis of dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate (DHEA-S). DHEA can be reduced to 5-androstenediol (Adiol), a steroid with potent oestrogenic properties.

A randomized trial on the efficacy of intensive rehabilitation in the acute phase of ischemic stroke.

Sixty patients admitted to hospital for hemispherical ischemic stroke causing severe disabilities were enrolled in the study. The patients were divided in two groups: A and B. The patients in group A were given intensive rehabilitative treatment; those in group B were given ordinary rehabilitative treatment.

First dual aromatase-steroid sulfatase inhibitors.

Aromatase inhibitors in clinical use block the biosynthesis of estrogens. Hydrolysis of estrone 3-sulfate by steroid sulfatase is an important additional source of tumor estrogen, and blockade of both enzymes should provide a more effective endocrine therapy. Sulfamoylated derivatives of the aromatase inhibitor YM511 inhibited sulfatase and aromatase in JEG-3 cells with respective IC(50) values of 20-227 and 0.

Focal nodular hyperplasia-like areas in cirrhosis.

Aims: Focal nodular hyperplasia-like lesions have rarely been described in cirrhotic livers. We describe five cases of such lesions.

Methods And Results: Between 1998 and 2001, 146 liver transplants were performed at the Royal Free Hospital for cirrhosis of the liver.

Lung tumorigenesis associated with erb-B-2 and erb-B-3 overexpression in human erb-B-3 transgenic mice is enhanced by methylnitrosourea.

Erb-B-3 overexpression is associated with poor prognosis in non-small cell lung cancer and is often overexpressed in breast cancers. MMTVhuman-erb-B-3 transgenic mice were generated to evaluate the impact of erb-B-3 overexpression on lung and mammary gland tumorigenesis. These transgenic mice developed a high incidence of lung adenocarcinomas but not mammary gland tumors.

Barkas effect for antiproton stopping in H2.

We report the stopping power of molecular hydrogen for antiprotons of kinetic energy above the maximum (approximately 100 keV) with the purpose of comparing with the proton one. Our result is consistent with a positive difference in antiproton-proton stopping powers above approximately 250 keV and with a maximum difference between the stopping powers of 21%+/-3% at around 600 keV.

Rho(0) meson production in the pp-->pppi(+)pi(-) reaction at 3.67 GeV/c.

Total and differential cross sections for the exclusive reaction pp-->pp rho observed via the pi(+)pi(-) decay channel have been measured at p(beam)=3.67 GeV/c. The observed total meson production cross section is determined to be (23.

Does amniotic fluid alpha-fetoprotein have diagnostic or prognostic value at the time of second midtrimester genetic amniocentesis?

In order to assess the usefulness of amniotic fluid alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) levels at the time of midtrimester genetic amniocentesis, 4,430 cases were retrospectively studied to compare the high, normal or low AFP values with the karyotype characteristics and fetal anatomy using ultrasound (US) scanning and confirmed by postnatal evaluation or necroscopy in the case of termination of pregnancy. All the cases presenting malformations were correctly diagnosed by US examinations. AFP levels over the 2nd standard deviation (SD) were found in 112 cases (2.