TOXview: a novel graphical presentation of cancer treatment toxicity profiles.

Toxicity profiles play a crucial role in the choice between specific palliative chemotherapy regimens. To optimize the quality of life for cancer patients, patients should be adequately informed about potential toxicities before undergoing chemotherapy. Therefore, we constructed TOXviews, a novel graphical presentation and overview of toxicity profiles to improve information provision about adverse events.

Treg subsets in inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal carcinoma: Characteristics, role, and therapeutic targets.

T regulatory cells (Tregs) play an important role in the regulation of autoimmunity, autoinflammation, allergic diseases, infection, and the tumor environment. Different subsets are characterized that use a number of regulatory mechanisms. Tregs can influence the progression of inflammatory bowel disease and the development of colorectal cancer.

Giant cell arteritis of the breast.

Objective: To report a rare case of giant cell arteritis of the breast in a 56-year-old woman.

Clinical Presentation And Intervention: The patient presented with tenderness in the upper outer quadrant of the left breast, in the absence of any constitutional symptoms. A diagnosis of giant cell arteritis was made only after surgical wedge excision of the affected breast quadrant.

Differential reversal of drug-induced small bowel paralysis by cerulein and neostigmine.

Objective: Cerulein and neostigmine are prokinetic drugs whose potency and effective dose range are barely known. The aim of this study was to assess their benefit for normal and compromised peristalsis.

Design: In vitro, isolated segments of guinea pig small intestine.

Endotoxin pretreatment modifies peristalsis and attenuates the antipropulsive action of adrenoceptor agonists in the guinea-pig small intestine.

The action of endotoxin to alter gastrointestinal motility in vivo may reflect a direct effect on the gut or result from vascular and other systemic manifestations of this sepsis model. Here we examined whether in vivo pretreatment of guinea-pigs with endotoxin modifies peristalsis in the isolated gut and influences the antipropulsive action of adrenoceptor agonists. Distension-induced peristalsis was recorded in fluid-perfused segments of the small intestine taken from animals pretreated intraperitoneally with endotoxin (1 mg kg(-1)Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide) or vehicle 4 or 20 h before.

Sufentanil potentiates the inhibitory effect of epinephrine on intestinal motility.

Objective: The aim of our study was to evaluate the effect of the combination of different catecholamines and sufentanil on peristalsis of the isolated guinea pig small bowel in vitro.

Design: In vitro study on excised guinea pig small-bowel segments (8-10 segments per substance tested).

Setting: Laboratory for experimental studies at the University.

A diagnostic support system in general practice: is it feasible?

A medical diagnostic decision support system (DDSS) has been developed for and tested in general practice. Two major issues have been addressed: diagnostic support and usefulness. The diagnostic support pertains to the ability of the system to generate diagnostic hypotheses from a set of patient data.