Subintimal angioplasty in femoropopliteal region-Mid-term results.

Purpose: Subintimal angioplasty is becoming more frequently used treatment option for patients with long arterial occlusions or diffuse atherosclerotic changes as an alternative to surgical treatment in claudicants especially in patients with critical limb ischemia. The aim of our article is to retrospectively assess mid-term outcomes of subintimal angioplasty of chronic arterial occlusions in femoropopliteal region followed clinically and by Doppler ultrasonography.

Materials And Methods: From May 2002 to December 2007, 133 femoropopliteal artery occlusions in 123 patients were indicated for subintimal recanalisation.

[Orbital tumors in adults--a 10-year study].

Unlabelled: The authors refer about diagnostic procedures, treatment and follow-up of 87 adult patients with orbital tumors during the period 1998 - 2007 in the Department of Ophthalmology, Faculty Hospital Královské Vinohrady, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic, E.U. The group consists of 42 men and 45 women, age range 18-89 years.

Synchronous vs asynchronous chain motion in alpha-synuclein contact dynamics.

alpha-Synuclein (alpha-syn) is an intrinsically unstructured 140-residue neuronal protein of uncertain function that is implicated in the etiology of Parkinson's disease. Tertiary contact formation rate constants in alpha-syn, determined from diffusion-limited electron-transfer kinetics measurements, are poorly approximated by simple random polymer theory. One source of the discrepancy between theory and experiment may be that interior-loop formation rates are not well approximated by end-to-end contact dynamics models.

Application of flow injection gradient titration based on the standard addition and dilution procedure to the determination of total acidity in vinegars and soft drinks.

The proposed approach relies on successive dilution of a solution containing a sample with standard addition and on titration of the solutions obtained until receiving a signal lower than the signal measured for the sample alone. Equations are derived for subsequent dilution factors for the automatic flow injection system applied. The overall calibration strategy including the possibility of prediction of the number of required standard solutions and of positioning the sample signal within the calibration range is presented.

Rapid repair of DNA double strand breaks in Arabidopsis thaliana is dependent on proteins involved in chromosome structure maintenance.

DNA double strand breaks (DSBs) are one of the most cytotoxic forms of DNA damage and must be repaired by recombination, predominantly via non-homologous joining of DNA ends (NHEJ) in higher eukaryotes. However, analysis of DSB repair kinetics of plant NHEJ mutants atlig4-4 and atku80 with the neutral comet assay shows that alternative DSB repair pathways are active. Surprisingly, these kinetic measurements show that DSB repair was faster in the NHEJ mutant lines than in wild-type Arabidopsis.

Impact of varying soil structure on transport processes in different diagnostic horizons of three soil types.

When soil structure varies in different soil types and the horizons of these soil types, it has a significant impact on water flow and contaminant transport in soils. This paper focuses on the effect of soil structure variations on the transport of pesticides in the soil above the water table. Transport of a pesticide (chlorotoluron) initially applied on soil columns taken from various horizons of three different soil types (Haplic Luvisol, Greyic Phaeozem and Haplic Cambisol) was studied using two scenarios of ponding infiltration.

Navigation-supported and sonographically-controlled fine-needle puncture in soft tissues of the neck.

In surgery, sonography has been a well-accepted means of orientation for years. The immediate vicinity of many vital structures in the head and neck region calls for a very exact visualization of the surgical instrument in the 2-D ultrasonic picture. We report on the development of a new method for navigation-supported and sonographically-controlled fine-needle puncture in soft tissues of the neck.

[Navigation-assisted sonography for soft tissues in the head and neck region].

Background: In soft tissue surgery of the head and neck region tissue shifts limit the usefulness of conventional CT/MRI-based navigation procedures. Furthermore, changes caused by invasive measures cannot be visualized.

Methods: A novel navigation device for sonography of soft tissues was developed.

Orientation sensitive properties of visually driven neurons in extrastriate area 21a of cat cortex.

Orientation sensitive properties of extrastriate area 21a neurons were investigated. Special attention was paid to the qualitative characteristics of neuron responses to the different orientations of visual stimulus motion across neuron classical receptive fields (CRF). The results of experiments have shown that a group of neurons (31%) in area 21a with specialized responses to moving visual stimuli changed their direction selective (DS) characteristics depending on the orientation of the stimulus movement.

Giant cell reparative granuloma in the mandible--case report and review of the literature.

Objective: Central giant cell granuloma (GCG) is defined as an intraosseous lesion consisting of cellular fibrous tissue containing multiple foci of hemorrhage, aggregations of multinucleated giant cells. Peripheral GCG is a reactive exophytic lesion occurring on the gingiva and alveolar ridge originating from the periosteum or periodontal membrane, usually as a result of local irritating factors.

Study Design: The case report evaluated long-term therapy of giant cell granuloma.

Exploring enantiospecific ligand-protein interactions using cellular membrane affinity chromatography: chiral recognition as a dynamic process.

The chiral recognition mechanisms responsible for the enantioselective binding on the alpha3beta4 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (alpha3 beta4 nAChR) and human organic cation transporter 1 (hOCT1) have been reviewed. The results indicate that chiral recognition on the alpha3beta4 nAChR is a process involving initial tethering of dextromethorphan and levomethorphan at hydrophobic pockets within the central lumen followed by hydrogen bonding interactions favoring dextromethorphan. The second step is the defining enantioselective step.

Endovascular treatment of abdominal aortic paraanastomotic pseudoaneurysms after surgical reconstruction.

Purpose: To evaluate the efficacy of endovascular treatment of paraaortic postoperative abdominal aortic pseudoaneurysms.

Materials And Methods: From April 1996 to November 2007 five men with paraaortic postoperative abdominal aortic pseudoaneurysm underwent endovascular treatment. Average age was 64.

Store-dependent and -independent modes regulating Ca2+ release-activated Ca2+ channel activity of human Orai1 and Orai3.

We evaluated currents induced by expression of human homologs of Orai together with STIM1 in human embryonic kidney cells. When co-expressed with STIM1, Orai1 induced a large inwardly rectifying Ca(2+)-selective current with Ca(2+)-induced slow inactivation. A point mutation of Orai1 (E106D) altered the ion selectivity of the induced Ca(2+) release-activated Ca(2+) (CRAC)-like current while retaining an inwardly rectifying I-V characteristic.

Kinetics of docking in postnucleation stages of self-assembly.

In a previous study, the early stages of self-assembly in nanophase materials were explored by coupling a kinetic mean-field analysis with a lattice-based stochastic theory [J. J. Kozak et al.

Our first experience with primary lip repair in newborns with cleft lip and palate.

The article summarizes the results of early primary lip repair in 44 newborns with cleft lip and palate. We present a study of the first 44 patients to undergo the surgery before the age of 1 week as performed by a surgeon who used a modified method according to Tennison with a nasal correction. Early lip surgeries started in 2005.

Orai1 and STIM1 move to the immunological synapse and are up-regulated during T cell activation.

For efficient development of an immune response, T lymphocytes require long-lasting calcium influx through calcium release-activated calcium (CRAC) channels and the formation of a stable immunological synapse (IS) with the antigen-presenting cell (APC). Recent RNAi screens have identified Stim and Orai in Drosophila cells, and their corresponding mammalian homologs STIM1 and Orai1 in T cells, as essential for CRAC channel activation. Here, we show that STIM1 and Orai1 are recruited to the immunological synapse between primary human T cells and autologous dendritic cells.

Simplified method for polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography.

We report a method for extracting the birefringence properties of biological samples with micrometer-scale resolution in three dimensions, using a new form of polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography. The method measures net retardance, net fast axis, and total reflectivity as a function of depth into the sample. Polarization sensing is accomplished by illumination of the sample with at least three separate polarization states during consecutive acquisitions of the same pixel, A scan, or B scan.

A new experimental measurement and planning tool for sonographic-assisted navigation.

In this study, we present a new 2.5-dimensional ultrasonic navigation system for measuring axes, lengths, and torsions preoperatively, intraoperatively, and postoperatively. The system comprises an ultrasound unit with a 5-MHz linear probe (TELEMED Echoblaster 128; Telemed, Vilnius, Lithuania) and a navigation system (OrthoPilot; B.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging of cerebral activation during spinal cord stimulation in failed back surgery syndrome patients.

Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) consisting of electrical stimulation of the dorsal spinal cord using epidural electrodes has been shown to relieve chronic neuropathic pain. To analyze the cerebral activation patterns related to SCS, and to evaluate the effects of SCS on the processing of acute experimental pain, we performed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on eight patients suffering from failed back surgery syndrome who were also being treated with SCS for severe pain in their legs and lower back. Three types of stimulation were used, each lasting 36s: (i) SCS, (ii) heat pain (HP) applied to the leg affected by neuropathic pain, and (iii) simultaneous HP and SCS.

[Perioperative cardiac arrhythmias in patients undergoing surgical treatment for lung cancer].

Introduction: Thoracic surgery is associated with a high risk of morbidity and mortality. Cardiac arrhythmias are the most common and severe complications in early postoperative period.

Objectives: Evaluation of the prevalence and causes of cardiac arrythmias, factors that predispose to their occurrence and their influence on general state of health in short-term postoperative period.

Novel approaches to analysis by flow injection gradient titration.

Two novel procedures for flow injection gradient titration with the use of a single stock standard solution are proposed. In the multi-point single-line (MP-SL) method the calibration graph is constructed on the basis of a set of standard solutions, which are generated in a standard reservoir and subsequently injected into the titrant. According to the single-point multi-line (SP-ML) procedure the standard solution and a sample are injected into the titrant stream from four loops of different capacities, hence four calibration graphs are able to be constructed and the analytical result is calculated on the basis of a generalized slope of these graphs.

Versatile flow injection manifold for analytical calibration.

A flow injection calibration system, originally designed and tested in our laboratory, is presented here as a versatile analytical tool serving for calibration purposes. It is characterized by a simple construction, easy operation and the possibility of offering rich measurement information with the use of a single standard solution. It is shown that depending on instrumental conditions and the composition of the calibration solutions the manifold is able to realize various calibration procedures according to interpolative, extrapolative and integration modes.

Development of prototype for navigated real-time sonography for the head and neck region.

Background: To date, few imaging methods have been established for the head and neck region, in particular for soft tissues, that allow adequate visualization and simultaneously adequate real-time orientation.

Methods: We report a new method using a navigated ultrasound device and a navigated surgical instrument that allows--even in the absence of bony landmarks--appropriate visualization and reliable orientation in real time.

Results: The practical applicability of the system was tested.

Total spondylectomy of C2: a new surgical technique.

According to the available sources, no case of total spondylectomy of C2 with preservation of roots, preservation of vertebral arteries and a short fixation without occipitocervical fusion has been so far described in the literature. We decided to perform a radical surgery in a man, now 27 y. o.