Clinical experiences using everolimus-eluting stents in patients with coronary artery disease.

Despite the growing use of drug-eluting stents, restenosis remains to occur especially in high risk subgroups like patients with diffuse in-stent restenosis. This observation is supporting the search for new and potentially even more effective drug eluting stent systems. Everolimus has been used in conjunction with a new bioabsorbable polymer and gave promising results in initial clinical studies.

Relationship between size of myocardial infarctions assessed by delayed contrast-enhanced MRI after primary PCI, biochemical markers, and time to intervention.

Background: The quantitative assessment of myocardial infarctions using delayed contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has recently been validated using postmortem histopathological animal studies. In a prospective study, we investigated the correlation between infarct size as assessed by delayed contrast-enhanced MRI, elevation of creatine kinase (CK), and c-reactive protein (CRP) as well as the time from onset of symptoms to intervention.

Methods: Four to 10 days after immediate PCI in 45 acute ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients (<24 hour) with stenting of the infarct-related artery and treatment with abciximab, we performed gadolinium contrast-enhanced three-dimensional inversion recovery gradient-echo MR sequences with complete coverage of the LV-myocardium in short-axis slices.

Information needs of adolescents with cancer.

Adolescents with cancer (AWC) have poorer treatment outcomes as well as higher incidence and mortality rates than do younger children, and they face additional challenges related to normal developmental issues of adolescence. Although research has shown that information on the cancer experience improves outcomes by decreasing uncertainty and increasing perceived support, little is known about the types of information AWC need and want. This study describes how AWC rate the importance of specific cancer-related information, analyzes gender and age group differences, and compares 2 different time-since-diagnosis groups of AWC.

Training brain retraction in a virtual reality environment.

A computer based virtual reality system is presented allowing the user to train skills related to brain retraction. The system is designed and the core training system implemented and tested. The initial test shows promising results.

The adolescent resilience model as a guide to interventions.

Adolescents with cancer (AWC) are a neglected population in the area of psychosocial services, and little theoretically based research has been conducted on interventions to help them positively adjust to the cancer experience. In addition, although knowledge of how individuals positively adjust to difficult life circumstances can provide important guidance for developing effective interventions, research has underemphasized positive health and overemphasized pathology models in addressing psychosocial adjustment of AWC. Theories focusing on positive health concepts such as resilience are potentially excellent guides for developing effective psychosocial interventions, because the factors that influence positive health, such as hope, positive coping, and perceived social support, are amenable to improvement.

The adolescent/young adult experience.

Adolescents and young adults with cancer (AYA) have strikingly poorer outcomes when compared to younger or older patients. Contributing reasons include low rates of enrollment in clinical trials and the "invisibility" of the AYA perspectives in research reports. We recommend a shift in research perspectives away from function-based studies that focus on morbidity and mortality outcomes to meaning-based models that will very likely rely upon qualitative methods and findings as the basis for developing psychosocial interventions that are sensitive to the AYA cancer experience.

Partitioning of the serotonin transporter into lipid microdomains modulates transport of serotonin.

The serotonin transporter (SERT) is an integral membrane protein responsible for the clearance of serotonin from the synaptic cleft following the release of the neurotransmitter. SERT plays a prominent role in the regulation of serotoninergic neurotransmission and is a molecular target for multiple antidepressants as well as substances of abuse. Here we show that SERT associates with lipid rafts in both heterologous expression systems and rat brain and that the inclusion of the transporter into lipid microdomains is critical for serotonin uptake activity.

SARS in pregnancy.

While severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is increasing in prevalence throughout the world, there had not been a documented case of SARS in pregnancy until early 2003, when a pregnant woman infected with SARS sought care at this New Jersey Hospital in March 2003. As this patient was the only known pregnant SARS patient in the U.S.

Method for modelling cerebral blood vessels and their bifurcations using circular, homogeneous, generalised cylinders.

A method for automatic modelling of blood vessels and their bifurcations from 3D scans of the brain is presented. The method is a three-step procedure. First, a skeleton of the cerebral blood vessels is developed, and then the surfaces of the blood vessels are located using an active contour approach.

Modelling of interaction between a spatula and a human brain.

This paper describes a method for surgery simulation, or more specifically a learning system of how to use a brain spatula. Improper use of brain spatulas can lead to brain tissue lesions such as tearing of brain tissue and ischemia. The idea is to provide surgeons with a tool which can teach them the correlation between deformation and applied force.

Long-term outcome after implantation of bare metal stents for the treatment of coronary artery disease: rationale for the clinical use of antiproliferative stent coatings.

Background: The widespread use of drug-eluting stents in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) is hampered by unequal regulations for reimbursement. Identification of patients with maximal benefit from this technology may be achieved by assessing long-term clinical outcome after implantation of uncoated bare metal stents.

Patients And Methods: A consecutive series of 1,000 patients with CAD treated with bare metal coronary stents of various designs from January 1995 to December 1995 was retrospectively followed over 4 years.

Online exclusive: functional integration of nursing research into a pediatric oncology cooperative group: finding common ground.

Purpose/objectives: To provide a brief description of the historic role of nursing and nursing research in the culture of previous pediatric oncology cooperative groups and compare the research language used in cooperative groups with the language used in nursing research.

Data Sources: Published empirical, clinical, and methodologic reports.

Data Synthesis: The culture and language of nursing research differ from those of medical research and the pediatric oncology cooperative group, the Children's Oncology Group (COG).

A randomized trial of polytetrafluoroethylene-membrane-covered stents compared with conventional stents in aortocoronary saphenous vein grafts.

We compared a conventional stent (Jostent Flex, Jomed GmbH, Rangendingen, Germany) with a polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE)-membrane-covered stent (Jostent Stentgraft) in patients undergoing intervention of a stenosis in an obstructed vein graft. The use of stents improved results of percutaneous revascularization of obstructed vein grafts, but did not demonstrate the reduced elevated restenosis rate. In addition, long-term clinical event rate is still high compared with intervention in native vessels.

Comparison of stainless steel stents coated with turbostratic carbon and uncoated stents for percutaneous coronary interventions.

Background: Stent coating with turbostratic carbon was supposed to minimize the local inflammatory response after stent implantation and to thereby also reduce the rates of restenosis and clinical events.

Methods And Results: From October, 1999 to February, 2002, a total of 329 patients with symptomatic coronary artery disease (CAD) eligible for single-lesion PCI were randomized for implantation of either a CarboStent (C; n = 168) or a stainless-steel stent (S; n = 161). The stainless-steel stents were Tristar stents in 60.

Comparison of seven different heterologous protein expression systems for the production of the serotonin transporter.

The rat serotonin transporter (rSERT) is an N-glycosylated integral membrane protein with 12 transmembrane regions; the N-glycans improve the ability of the SERT polypeptide chain to fold into a functional transporter, but they are not required for the transmembrane transport of serotonin per se. In order to define the best system for the expression, purification and structural analysis of serotonin transporter (SERT), we expressed SERT in Escherichia coli, Pichia pastoris, the baculovirus expression system and in four different stable mammalian cell lines. Two stable cell lines that constitutively expressed SERT (Imi270 and Coca270) were constructed using episomal plasmids in HEK293 cells expressing the EBNA-1 antigen.

A case of late-onset primary hyperoxaluria type 1.

Primary hyperoxaluria type 1 (PH1) is an inherited metabolic disorder characterized by recurrent urolithiasis and nephrocalcinosis frequently leading to progressive renal insufficiency during the second decade of life. Systemic organ involvement as a result of the accumulation of calcium oxalate crystal deposits in vessel walls often is observed. We report a case of a 56-year-old woman with late-onset of PH1 who developed rapidly progressive renal failure and severe systemic oxalosis with skin and eye involvement despite intensified hemodialytic therapy during the waiting period for combined liver and kidney transplantation.

Regulation of the serotonin transporter by interacting proteins.

The serotonin transporter (SERT) plays a critical role in the maintenance of normal neurotransmission by serotonin [5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT)]. Recent evidence suggests that SERT and other neurotransmitter transporters are tightly regulated. Activation of protein kinase C results in a decrease in SERT-mediated 5-HT uptake, which is due to an internalization of the transporter.

Signals from skin mechanoreceptors used in control of a hand grasp neuroprosthesis.

We used signals from tactile mechanoreceptors in the skin of the index finger, recorded with an implanted cuff electrode, to automatically control grasp force in a hand grasp neuroprosthesis. Phasic events in the recorded nerve signal, related to mechanical events on the skin, were used to adjust electrical stimulation of hand muscles without any prior knowledge about muscle strength and properties of a held object. A simulated eating task was used to evaluate the hand grasp neuroprosthesis.

Extracranial-intracranial bypass surgery in cerebrovascular diseases.

Since the report from the International Study on extracranial-intracranial bypass was presented in 1985, an abrupt stop to almost all bypass surgery was introduced. The clear goals of the bypass study to reduce repeated strokes based on extracranial-intracranial bypass could not be documented. This review emphasizes the drawbacks of this previous study and why its conclusions were too sweeping, including statements that the study could not validate.