Effects of the calcium antagonist tiapamil on pulmonary gas exchange in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease who receive salbutamol.

Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and cardiovascular diseases are frequently given combination therapy with a beta 2-agonist and a calcium antagonist. Each drug is known to increase ventilation-perfusion inequalities. It was our aim to define the effects of their combination on lung function and on pulmonary gas exchange in eight subjects with COPD but partially reversible airway obstruction.

Steady-state concentration of cotinine as a measure of nicotine-intake by smokers.

Measurement of plasma cotinine, the major metabolite of nicotine, is usually done to determine nicotine-intake in smokers. Cotinine is used instead of nicotine because it has a much longer half-life than the mother substance and its plasma concentrations are therefore less dependent on the exact times of blood sampling. However, the linearity of the relationship between nicotine-intake and cotinine level in plasma has never been proven.

[Young syndrome. Chronic sino-pulmonary infection and infertility].

Young's syndrome is a combination of chronic sinopulmonary infections and obstructive azoospermia in men. Cystic fibrosis and the "immotile cilia syndrome" must be ruled out. The most important methods in differential diagnosis are determination of sweat chloride and sodium levels, investigation of cilia ultrastructure and analysis of semen samples.

beta blockade with pindolol: differential cardiac and renal effects despite similar plasma kinetics in normal and uremic man.

Cardiac and renal effects (measured as the reduction in exercise-induced tachycardia and PRA, respectively) and circulating drug concentrations after acute beta blockade with intravenous pindolol were compared between seven normal volunteers and six patients with terminal renal failure. Kinetic parameters were similar in both groups (total body clearance, 450 mg/min), indicating enhanced extrarenal elimination in patients. For any given drug concentration, however, the uremic patients responded to beta blockade with a greater decrease in pulse rate than did normal volunteers (P less than 0.