Detecting MCI and dementia in primary care: effectiveness of the MMS, the FAQ and the IQCODE [corrected].

Objectives: To study the yield of three instruments for detection of patients with cognitive impairment in primary care. To investigate whether combining tests is better for detecting impairment than applying them separately.

Methods: Seven primary care physicians (PCP) systematically recruited individuals aged over 49 years with a complaint or suspicion of cognitive impairment.

Mild cognitive impairment and dementia in primary care: the value of medical history.

Background: Primary care should be the place for the early detection of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia; however, a considerable proportion of these processes remain undetected at this setting. Family doctors may not have enough time or expertise for cognitive testing. The utility of clinical variables, other than cognitive tests, has hardly been investigated.

Survival of allogeneic hepatocytes transplanted into the thymus.

Background/aim: Currently, when cell therapy is being considered instead of liver transplantation to treat terminal liver diseases, complete knowledge of the evolution and behavior of ectopically transplanted hepatocytes is a subject of utmost interest in the design of clinical trials. Hepatocytes survive in ectopic locations and have a therapeutic effect in different experimental models. Although it offers remarkable advantages over liver transplantation, hepatocyte transplantation presents several problems, among them the number of cells that can be injected at once and their rejection.

Functional response of hepatocytes transplanted into Gunn rats stimulated with thyroid hormone.

In the attempt to translate laboratory studies into clinical practice, the small number of cells that can be transplanted is currently a problem to be solved. The aim of this work is to study the functional response of intrasplenically transplanted syngeneic rat adult and fetal hepatocytes to a proliferative stimulus, 3,5,3'-triiodothyronine. Total serum bilirubin significantly decreased from 7 to 90 days after fetal hepatocyte transplantation and from 24 hr to 30 days after adult hepatocyte transplantation.

Hepatic proliferation in Gunn rats transplanted with hepatocytes: effect of retrorsine and tri-iodothyronine.

Hepatocyte transplantation would offer an attractive alternative to liver transplantation in the treatment of inborn errors of liver metabolism. However, a major problem in most transplantation studies to date has been the limited growth of transplanted cells in the recipient organ. We performed a strategy for selective proliferation of transplanted cells by interfering with the proliferative capacity of resident hepatocytes, using the pyrrolizidine alkaloid retrorsine and then transplanting liver cells in conjunction with repeated administration of triiodothyronine, an inducer of hepatocyte proliferation in rats.