Thermal heterogeneity constitutes a marker for the detection of malignant gastric lesions in vivo.

Background: Several studies have attempted to investigate the association of thermal difference between malignant tumors and inflammatory benign lesions. In this work, we evaluated whether thermal heterogeneity of solid tumors in the stomach constitutes a marker for the diagnosis of benign, preneoplastic, and malignant lesions.

Study: A thermistor probe was used that attached to the distal end of a long and steerable, 3fr-thermography catheter passed through the biopsy channel of the gastroscope and came in touch with the stomach epithelium to measure temperature differences (DeltaT) between normal tissue and various types of lesions.

Digoxin-like substance(s) interfere(s) with serum estimations of the drug in cirrhotic patients.

We measured the levels of digoxin-like immunoreactivity in the serum of 40 volunteers (20 patients with liver cirrhosis and 20 healthy adults) before and after the administration of a 5-day standard regimen of digoxin. Serum digoxin levels (SDL) were evaluated with two different radioimmunoassay (RIA) kits--Amerlex Digoxin 125I RIA and Digoxin 125I RIA. Digoxin was detectable by each RIA kit in 10 and 15% of controls and 50 and 60% of cirrhotic patients before the administration of the drug, respectively.