Improved ventilatory response during exercise over time after concussion: A case report.

This case study reports the exercise ventilatory responses of a 17-year-old female who sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI) which resulted in loss of consciousness. Subsequently, she suffered from post-concussion syndrome accompanied by orthostatic and exercise intolerance. A cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET) was performed 2 years post-TBI.

Chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension in Australia and New Zealand: An analysis of the PHSANZ registry.

Background And Objective: Chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) is a serious condition occurring in 2%-4% of patients after acute pulmonary embolism. Pulmonary endarterectomy (PEA) is a potential cure for technically operable disease. The epidemiology and long-term outcomes of CTEPH have not been previously described in Australia and New Zealand.

Lung and fissure shape is associated with age in healthy never-smoking adults aged 20-90 years.

Lung shape could hold prognostic information for age-related diseases that affect lung tissue mechanics. We sought to quantify mean lung shape, its modes of variation, and shape associations with lung size, age, sex, and Body Mass Index (BMI) in healthy subjects across a seven-decade age span. Volumetric computed tomography from 83 subjects (49 M/34 F, BMI [Formula: see text]) was used to derive two statistical shape models using a principal component analysis.

Pulmonary arterial hypertension with below threshold pulmonary vascular resistance.

Pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) >3 Wood units is a criterion of the haemodynamic definition of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). However, this cut-off is conservative and arbitrarily defined. Data is lacking on the natural history, response to therapy and survival of patients diagnosed with precapillary pulmonary hypertension (PH) with mild or borderline elevation of PVR.

Diagnostic delay in pulmonary arterial hypertension: Insights from the Australian and New Zealand pulmonary hypertension registry.

Background And Objective: Early diagnosis of PAH is clinically challenging. Patterns of diagnostic delay in Australian and New Zealand PAH populations have not been explored in large-scale studies. We aimed to evaluate the magnitude, risk factors and survival impact of diagnostic delay in Australian and New Zealand PAH patients.

Child-Parent Familial Hypercholesterolemia Screening in Primary Care.

Background: Child-parent screening for familial hypercholesterolemia has been proposed to identify persons at high risk for inherited premature cardiovascular disease. We assessed the efficacy and feasibility of such screening in primary care practice.

Methods: We obtained capillary blood samples to measure cholesterol levels and to test for familial hypercholesterolemia mutations in 10,095 children 1 to 2 years of age during routine immunization visits.

Effects of vitamin B-12 supplementation on neurologic and cognitive function in older people: a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Moderate vitamin B-12 deficiency is relatively common in older people. However, there is little robust evidence on the effect of vitamin B-12 supplementation on neurologic and cognitive outcomes in later life.

Objective: We investigated whether vitamin B-12 supplementation benefits neurologic and cognitive function in moderately vitamin B-12-deficient older people.

Cumulative flying time and risk of venous thromboembolism.

The risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE) associated with cumulative flying time remains uncertain. In a case-control study in general practices throughout the UK, participants comprised 550 VTE cases identified from practice records and 1971 age- and gender-matched controls. Participants returned identical questionnaires asking for information including air travel details.

A randomised controlled trial investigating the effect of vitamin B12 supplementation on neurological function in healthy older people: the Older People and Enhanced Neurological function (OPEN) study protocol [ISRCTN54195799].

Background: Vitamin B12 deficiency is common in older people and the prevalence increases with age. Vitamin B12 deficiency may present as macrocytic anaemia, subacute combined degeneration of the spinal cord, or as neuropathy, but is often asymptomatic in older people. The diagnosis and indications for treatment are clear for individuals with low plasma levels of vitamin B12 in the setting of megaloblastic anaemia and neuropathy, but the relevance of treatment of vitamin B12 deficiency in the absence of such clinical signs is uncertain.

Neuromuscular disease and respiratory failure.

Neurologists should be able to anticipate and recognise the onset of respiratory failure in patients with neuromuscular disorders. Symptoms will differ depending on the speed of onset of the respiratory muscle weakness. Careful monitoring of respiratory function is particularly important in acute disorders such as Guillain-Barré syndrome.

Advice to use topical or oral ibuprofen for chronic knee pain in older people: randomised controlled trial and patient preference study.

Objective: To determine whether older patients with chronic knee pain should be advised to use topical or oral non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs).

Design: Randomised controlled trial and patient preference study.

Setting: 26 general practices.

PHARMAC not funding some treatments for rare, life-threatening diseases: bosentan as an example.

Pulmonary arterial hypertension is a devastating and fatal disease for which effective therapies have been developed over the last 10 years. Unfortunately these therapies are expensive. The New Zealand health system which has no discernible strategy to deal with the issue of high-cost treatments has, through its agent, PHARMAC, failed to either clearly state that they recognise the need to fund treatment for this condition or to refuse all effective treatments and defend such a decision in the public arena.