A multi-element psychosocial intervention for early psychosis (GET UP PIANO TRIAL) conducted in a catchment area of 10 million inhabitants: study protocol for a pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial.

Background: Multi-element interventions for first-episode psychosis (FEP) are promising, but have mostly been conducted in non-epidemiologically representative samples, thereby raising the risk of underestimating the complexities involved in treating FEP in 'real-world' services.

Methods/design: The Psychosis early Intervention and Assessment of Needs and Outcome (PIANO) trial is part of a larger research program (Genetics, Endophenotypes and Treatment: Understanding early Psychosis - GET UP) which aims to compare, at 9 months, the effectiveness of a multi-component psychosocial intervention versus treatment as usual (TAU) in a large epidemiologically based cohort of patients with FEP and their family members recruited from all public community mental health centers (CMHCs) located in two entire regions of Italy (Veneto and Emilia Romagna), and in the cities of Florence, Milan and Bolzano. The GET UP PIANO trial has a pragmatic cluster randomized controlled design.

Rapid determination of creatinine in serum and urine by ion-pair high-performance liquid chromatography.

We report a simple and reliable high performance liquid chromatography method for measuring creatinine in serum and urine. The chromatographic run is performed on a C(18) column after protein precipitation with acetone and addition of cimetidine as an internal standard. The separation is carried out in 20 min at a flow rate of 0.

The protective effects of L-arginine after liver ischaemia/reperfusion injury in a pig model.

Hepatic ischaemia/reperfusion is characterized by circulatory and metabolic derangement, liver dysfunction, and tissue damage. To evaluate the role of L-arginine, a substrate of nitric oxide, in ischaemia/reperfusion injury, total liver ischaemia was induced for 120 min in 22 Landrace x Large White female pigs, which were randomly assigned to a treatment group (10 animals) or a control group (12 animals). An L-arginine bolus (540 mg/kg i.