Exploring primary care physician feedback following an integrative oncology consultation.

Objective: To explore responses from primary care physicians (PCPs) from an integrative physician (IP) consultation and recommended integrative oncology (IO) treatment program.

Methods: Chemotherapy-treated patients were referred by their oncology healthcare professional to an IP, a physician dually trained in complementary medicine and supportive cancer care. The consultation summary and patient-centered IO treatment program was then sent to the patient's PCP, with PCP-to-IP responses analyzed qualitatively using ATLAS.

[Treatment of reno-ureteral lithiasis with ESWL in obese patients. Apropos of 150 patients].

Objectives: Obesity is considered a significant risk factor for diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, coronary artery disease, and metabolic diseases, increasing considerably the risk for surgery. We have treated with ESWL a significant number of patients with the aim of avoiding operations which could be long and have associated complications due to the patient's condition.

Methods: From April 2000 to May 2002 we treated 150 obese patients with kidney and/or ureteral stones using a Nova Ultima lithotripter.

Evidence for extrarenal production of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin during physiological bone growth: in vivo and in vitro production by deer antler cells.

The development of deer antler follows a pattern similar to that described for mammalian endochondral ossification and has been proposed as a suitable model for studies of bone growth. We investigated seasonal changes in the plasma concentrations of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D [1,25-(OH)2D] and calcium and the activity of alkaline phosphatase in relation to the antler cycle during 1 yr in 4 captive roe deer and measured these biological parameters in 27 wild roe deer during their antler cycle. A significant elevation of 1,25-(OH)2D in peripheral plasma, with no parallel increase in the concentration of its precursor 25-hydroxyvitamin D, was observed to accompany the rapid growth phase of the antler cycle in captive (P less than 0.

Effects of long-term maintenance therapy with a new glucocorticoid, deflazacort, on mineral metabolism and statural growth.

Deflazacort was substituted for Prednisone (based on the equivalence 1 mg Prednisone equals 1.2 mg Deflazacort), during maintenance glucocorticoid therapy in 9 children, 5 with renal diseases and 4 with connective tissue or immunoproliferative disorders. Six patients received 0.

Elevated plasma 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D concentrations in infants with hypercalcemia and an elfin facies.

We measured plasma concentrations of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25-(OH)2D) in the course of a 6-to-37-month survey of four children with hypercalcemia and an elfin facies (Williams syndrome). Levels of 1,25-(OH)2D were elevated (160 to 470 pg per milliliter) during the hypercalcemic phase of the disease, when the children were five to nine months old, and they decreased thereafter. Plasma 1,25 (OH)2D levels were higher than those found in three children (16 to 60 months old) with the elfin facies syndrome and no hypercalcemia (42 to 71 pg per milliliter) and eight children (1 to 36 months old) with hypercalcemia and no dysmorphy (12 to 140 pg per milliliter), including two children with vitamin D intoxication.

[Chondrodysplasia punctata congenita: a genetic heterogenous disease].

Chondrodysplasia punctata congenita is an entity of genetic heterogeneity characterized by the presence of stippled epiphyseal and extra-epiphyseal calcifications in roentgenograms. There are at least three distinct types which differ in their mode of inheritance: the autosomal recessive, the X-linked dominant and the autosomal dominant type. Recently a mesomelic type has been recognized.

Rickets and alopecia with resistance to 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D: two different clinical courses with two different cellular defects.

Unlabelled: Two unrelated patients, aged 22 months and 31 months, with alopecia and rickets resistant to 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25-(OH)2D] (vitamin D-dependency type II) presented with similar biochemical and radiologic features. They were treated with large doses of vitamin D3 derivatives [25-hydroxyvitamin D3 (25-(OH)D3), 1,25-(OH)2D3, and 1 alpha-hydroxyvitamin D3] for 28 months and 6 yr, respectively. In both patients, serum 1,25-(OH)2D levels remained high (approximately 10- to 100-fold normal) during the different therapeutic regimens.

Circulating vitamin D metabolite concentrations in children with nutritional rickets.

Serum calcidiol, calcitriol, and 24,25-dihydroxyvitamin D concentrations were measured in 20 children with vitamin D-deficiency rickets. Vitamin D metabolite concentrations were measured in 17 of 20 patients before treatment and in 14 of 20 patients after vitamin D administration. Conclusions are as follows.

[Measurements of plasma concentrations of active vitamin D metabolites in children: interest and limit (author's transl)].

This study of the three main vitamin D metabolites namely 25-(OH) D, 24, 25-(OH) 2D and 1, 25-(OH) 2D includes (1) a summary of the usual assay techniques, (2) a discussion about the concentrations and the role of these metabolites during the neonatal and childhood periods, (3) a report of the results obtained during the past seven years in our laboratory with comments on the interest and limits of these assays for the diagnosis of different types of rickets.