The Obstetric Medicine Listserv: review of controversies surrounding thrombophilia testing.

A woman with no significant personal or family history of thrombosis asked her internist to obtain a thrombophilia work-up prior to starting the combined oral contraceptive for dysmenorrhoea, after another physician advised her to have the test. The case was sent to an international email discussion group where the consensus was that testing should not be done. The responses of the group and review of this controversial topic are presented.

Breast cancer survivors and vitamin D: a review.

Recent evidence has suggested a role for vitamin D in breast cancer prevention and survival. Studies have reported an inverse relation between vitamin D intake and the risk of breast cancer, improvements in survival after a diagnosis of breast cancer in women with higher levels of vitamin D, and vitamin D insufficiency in up to 75% of women with breast cancer. Preclinical data have indicated that vitamin D affects up to 200 genes that influence cellular proliferation, apoptosis, angiogenesis, terminal differentiation of normal and cancer cells, and macrophage function.

[Quantitative and qualitative analysis of the blood flow in breast tumors using power Doppler ultrasound].

Purpose: Our study was performed to obtain additional information regarding the present diagnostic approaches in breast tumor diagnosis by investigating tumor vessels. We present a new method that helps to capture the morphologic features from power Doppler ultrasound images using a computer-aided system facilitating pixel relation analysis techniques in the region of interest (ROI).

Materials And Methods: 45 solid breast tumors, including 18 benign and 27 malignant histologically proven cases, were studied using quantitative and qualitative parameters with extracted three-dimensional (3D) diagrams.

A practical approach to guide clinicians in the evaluation of male patients with breast masses.

Breast cancer must be considered in the evaluation of breast masses in men, although various benign causes are more common, including gynecomastia and conditions of the skin and subcutaneous tissue. A patient's history may identify key features suspicious for malignancy or reassuring for benign disease. Physical examination has been documented to be as effective as mammography in distinguishing benign from malignant lesions, and both have been reported as highly accurate for the identification of malignancy.

Advances in the care of patients with intracerebral hemorrhage.

Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), which comprises 15 percent to 30 percent of all strokes, has an estimated incidence of 37,000 cases per year. One third of patients are actively bleeding when they present to the emergency department, and hematoma growth during the first hours after ICH onset is thought to be a prime determinant of clinical deterioration. Inflammation, as opposed to ischemia, also negatively affects patient condition.