Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is the most common eye disease complication of diabetes, and hypovitaminosis D is mentioned as one of the risk factors. Vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol) and vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) are the best-known forms of vitamin D. Calcitriol (1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol) is the active form of vitamin D, with the sun being one of its main sources.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Biosci (Landmark Ed)
February 2022
Uveal melanoma (UM) is the most prevalent primary intraocular malignancy in adults with a stable incidence rate between five and seven cases per million in Europe and the United States. Although UM and melanoma from other sites have the same origin, UM has different epidemiological, biological, pathological and clinical features including characteristic metastatic hepatotropism. Despite improvements in the treatment of primary tumours, approximately 50% of patients with UM will develop metastases.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCent Eur J Public Health
June 2019
Objective: Diabetic retinopathy is one of the leading causes of blindness. We estimated the prevalence of diabetic retinopathy among a diabetic population in the Dubrovnik-Neretva County in the Republic of Croatia and searched for potential risk factors.
Methods: A prospective study was performed with 600 diabetic patients from different parts of the Dubrovnik-Neretva County who attended regular medical and ophthalmological check-ups at the General Hospital Dubrovnik from September 2014 to September 2015.
A case is presented of a very rare type of Usher's syndrome detected in a 30-year-old woman in her 28th week of pregnancy. She reported left eye visual impairment with a one-month history. She underwent standard ophthalmologic examination with additional procedures scheduled after childbirth, including fluorescein angiography, visual field (Goldman and Octopus) and electroretinography.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Objectives: Cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR) provides information on the intracerebral arterioles capacity to react to vasodilatory stimuli. The current study aimed to investigate the influence of hypertension and type 2 diabetes mellitus on CVR in diabetics with retinopathy.
Design And Setting: Retrospective analysis of data prospectively collected over a 1-year period.
Data on all patients admitted in 2008 to the Department of Neurology, Dubrovnik General Hospital, were retrospectively analyzed. In a total of 663 patients, there were 247 (37.25%) stroke patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPeripheral facial palsy is a clinical entity, which may be presented as the first symptom of multiple sclerosis (MS). Although MS is mostly a multifocal chronic inflammation of the central nervous system, peripheral nervous system can also be involved. Isolated cranial nerve palsies are rare and occur in 1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground/aim: Population-based epidemiological studies about headaches, especially migraine, have been carried out in many countries. The aim of this study was to assess the 1-year prevalence of migraine, probable migraine and tension-type headache (TTH) in the Croatian population.
Methods: The design of the study was a cross-sectional survey of an adult population sample using a self-completed questionnaire.
Aim: Smoking is the most harmful social habit and is the origin of many diseases including direct damaging of arterial walls. The aim of this study was to assess the possible differences in vascular age of smokers versus never smokers, measured in common carotid artery (CCA).
Methods: The study included healthy volunteers with age and sex risk factors for cerebrovascular disease development.
Fabry disease is an X-linked recessive glycolipid storage disease. It is caused by deficiency of the lysosomal enzyme alpha-galactosidase A and leads to the accumulation of the enzyme substrate, globotriasylceramide (Gb3) in many tissues including endothelial cells, pericytes and smooth muscle cells of blood vessels, renal epithelial cells, cardiac myocytes and numerous neuronal cells. In this report, we present 20-year-old male patient with ischemic stroke in pons.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeuropathic pain refers to pain that originates from pathology of the nervous system. Common causes of neuropathic pain are diabetes mellitus, reactivation of herpes zoster, nerve compression or radiculopathy, alcohol, chemotherapy or abuse of some drugs, and trigeminal neuralgia. Specific symptoms of neuropathic pain are mechanical allodynia and cold hyperalgesia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDamage to the somatosensory nervous system poses a risk for the development of neuropathic pain. Such an injury to the nervous system results in a series of neurobiological events resulting in sensitization of both the peripheral and central nervous system. The symptoms include continuous background pain (often burning or crushing in nature) and spasmodic pain (shooting, stabbing or "electrical").
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