Publications by authors named "Hannes Strasser"

This article describes a new form of administration of inhaled prescribed heroin currently under investigation. It underlines the particularity of opioid agonist prescription in jail and presents new perspectives in using psilocybin in addiction medicine treatment. A brief literature review about vaping confirms its interest in quitting cigarette, with a cost of addiction to vaping and recent worrisome reports of chemical pneumonia.

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Background: The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of cannabis use among Swiss students and to assess their attitudes regarding health and safety issues associated with drug use.

Subjects And Methods: After a workshop, 173 students (23.1% male, 75.

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Objective: To investigate the behaviour of donor myoblasts at the vesico-ureteric junction (VUJ) and to evaluate their potential as an autologous bulking agent, as myoblast transplantation has been shown to regenerate damaged or degenerated tissue, and it was postulated that they could be used to treat vesico-ureteric reflux.

Materials And Methods: Muscle biopsies were obtained from the lower limb muscles of 10 pigs. The quality of the cells was evaluated by electrophysiological and immunohistochemical tests.

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Chronic pelvic pain (CPP), a common condition particularly in reproductive-aged women, causes disability and distress, and significantly compromises quality of life and affects healthcare costs. The pathogenesis of CPP is still poorly understood and consequently poorly managed. Furthermore, the lack of a consensus on the definition of CPP greatly hinders epidemiological studies.

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Objective: To investigate, in a morphological study, the anatomy of the male rhabdosphincter and the relation between the membranous urethra, the rhabdosphincter and the neurovascular bundles (NVBs) to provide the anatomical basis for surgical approach of the posterior urethra as successful outcomes in urethral reconstructive surgery still remain a challenging issue.

Materials And Methods: In all, 11 complete pelves and four tissue blocks of prostate, rectum, membranous urethra and the rhabdosphincter were studied. Besides anatomical preparations, the posterior urethra and their relationship were studied by means of serial histological sections.

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Objectives: To investigate, using transrectal colour Doppler ultrasonography, (TRCDUS) whether perfusion of the bladder and prostate is reduced in elderly patients with lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS), common in later life, as experimental data suggest that chronic ischaemia has a key role in the development of LUTS.

Patients, Subjects And Methods: In 32 elderly patients with LUTS (12 women, mean age 82.3 years, group 1; and 20 men, 79.

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Objective: To evaluate the usefulness of real-time virtual ultrasonography (RVS) as a new navigational tool for percutaneous radiofrequency ablation (RFA) of solid renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

Patients And Methods: Ten patients with 13 RCCs were treated with percutaneous RFA using RVS, which displays ultrasonograms and corresponding multiplanar reconstruction images of computed tomography in parallel.

Results: RVS allowed excellent anatomical visualization and precise navigation of RFA for RCC.

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Objective: To investigate the value of the resistive index (RI) of intratesticular arteries, and to establish diagnostic criteria for normal and pathological sperm counts on the basis of quantitative colour Doppler ultrasonography (CDUS), as the assessment of the testicular RI is widely used to measure intratesticular blood flow.

Patients And Methods: In all, 160 men (aged 22-43 years, 320 testicles) were prospectively investigated; 80 had a normal and 80 a pathological sperm count, the latter having mild oligoasthenozoospermia. The RI was measured using a high-frequency Doppler ultrasound probe (14 MHz), three times on each testicle at an intratesticular artery in the upper, middle and lower testicular pole.

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Objective: To critically review published data on the urogynaecological aspects of female sexual dysfunction (FSD), as FSD is a developing multidisciplinary issue associated with several biological, medical and psychological factors.

Methods: The reported prevalence of FSD is 19-50% and women with lower urinary tract symptoms or urinary incontinence (UI) not only complain of a deteriorating of quality of life but also of sexual life with an incidence as high as 26-47%. Furthermore, urogynaecological surgery represents an important but underestimated cause of FSD.

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Objective: To sonographically investigate whether mountain bikers have a higher prevalence of scrotal abnormalities compared with on-road cyclists.

Design: We studied 85 male mountain bikers (mean age: 25 years; range 17-45 years) and 50 male on-road cyclists (mean age: 23 years, range 15-46 years) with regard to scrotal findings on ultrasound (US).

Setting: Medical University Innsbruck, Austria.

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Objective: To assess the use of contrast-enhanced color Doppler imaging (CDI), computed tomography (CT), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for the detection of crossing vessels at the ureteropelvic junction (UPJ) in patients with ureteropelvic junction obstruction (UPJO).

Materials And Methods: Forty-eight patients aged 18-69 yr (mean age, 52) who had been diagnosed with an UPJO on intravenous pyelography and diuretic renography were included. Contrast-enhanced CDI was performed by using both color Doppler frequency and color Doppler amplitude ("Power") modes.

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Objective: To investigate whether a mechanism of action of alpha-blockers on lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) involves improved perfusion of the LUT.

Patients, Subjects And Methods: The accuracy of perfusion measurements using transrectal colour Doppler ultrasound (TRCDUS) and colour pixel density (CPD) was initially confirmed in a porcine model. Following this confirmation, measurements were taken from four healthy male volunteers and 19 patients with LUTS.

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Purpose: We assessed the efficacy and safety of the application of autologous fibroblasts and myoblasts for treatment in post-prostatectomy urinary incontinence after a minimal followup of 1 year.

Materials And Methods: Sixty-three patients with stress urinary incontinence after radical prostatectomy were treated with transurethral ultrasound guided injections of autologous fibroblasts and myoblasts obtained from skeletal muscle biopsies. All subjects were evaluated preoperatively and 12 months postoperatively in terms of incontinence and Quality of Life Instrument scores, urodynamic parameters, and morphology and function of the urethra and rhabdosphincter.

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Objective: To assess the value of contrast-enhanced ultrasonography (US) with the contrast pulse-sequence (CPS) technique for detecting renal parenchymal changes in acute pyelonephritis (APN), compared with contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) as the reference standard.

Patients And Methods: We examined 100 patients (82 women, 18 men; mean age 30.2 years, range 18-67); children (those aged <18 years) were excluded from the study.

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Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men. In the future, a significant further increase in the incidence of prostate cancer is expected. Therefore, improvement of prostate cancer diagnosis is a main topic of diagnostic imaging.

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Objective: To compare the precision of transurethral endoscopic- vs ultrasound (US)-guided injections, as transurethral application of various injectables under endoscopic view are widely used to treat urinary incontinence.

Material And Methods: Bovine collagen was injected into the lower urinary tract in 20 dead female pigs. In each pig five depots of collagen were injected and there were five pigs in each group.

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Purpose Of Review: Conventional ultrasonography of both, kidney and prostate, is limited due to the poor contrast of B-mode imaging for parenchymal disease and limited sensitivity of colour Doppler for the detection of capillaries and deep pedicular vessels. Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) overcomes these limitations.

Recent Findings: CEUS investigates the blood flow of the prostate, allows for prostate cancer visualization and for targeted biopsies.

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Objectives: To investigate the influence of intravesical potassium on pelvic floor activity (PFA) during voiding in women with recurrent urinary tract infections (rUTIs) by using comparative urodynamics (CUD).

Patients And Methods: CUD was conducted in 49 women (mean age 34.6 years, range 15-82) with rUTI.

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Objective: To assess the efficacy and safety of the application of autologous myoblasts and fibroblasts for treating female stress urinary incontinence (SUI) after a follow-up of >/=1 year.

Patients And Methods: In all, 123 women with SUI (aged 36-84 years) were treated with transurethral ultrasonography-guided injections with autologous myoblasts and fibroblasts obtained from skeletal muscle biopsies. The fibroblasts were suspended in a small amount of collagen as carrier material and injected into the urethral submucosa, while the myoblasts were implanted into the rhabdosphincter.

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Background: We performed a prospective randomized trial comparing 5 contrast-enhanced color Doppler (CECD) ultrasound (US) targeted biopsy cores to 10 gray-scale US guided systematic biopsy (SB) cores to determine the impact on the cancer detection rate.

Methods: We prospectively randomized 100 prostate specific antigen (PSA) screening volunteers with an elevated PSA (> or =1.25 ng/ml and free-to-total PSA < 18%) to undergo contrast-enhanced targeted or SB.

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Objectives: To investigate the efficacy of transurethral ultrasound (TUUS)-guided injections of autologous myoblasts and fibroblasts in women with incontinence.

Methods: Between January and June 2005, 20 female patients suffering from stress urinary incontinence (SUI) were included. Skeletal muscle biopsies were taken from the left arm to obtain cultures from autologous fibroblasts and myoblasts.

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