Symptomatic efficacy of stabilizing treatment versus laser therapy for sub-acute low back pain with positive tests for sacroiliac dysfunction: a randomised clinical controlled trial with 1 year follow-up.

Aim: Back pain is a highly frequent condition due to many causes, although most of them cannot be established with certainty. It is also the current clinical and scientific belief that sacroiliac joint syndrome can be a specific low back pain cause. Nonetheless the existence of clinical tests aimed at highlighting the responsibility for lumbar pain secondary to sacroiliac dysfunction, it is not easy to diagnose it with either manual or instrumental means.

[Development of Italian research in anesthesiology and intensive care].

The development of the Italian research in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care medicine has been evaluated by comparing the total number of papers in this field and the number of the Italian papers in this field published in the years 1977, 1987, 1997. The results showed: a) an increase of the total number of papers published in the indexed journals dedicated to Anesthesia and Intensive Care with an increase higher than 50% per decade. In the same period the number of Italian papers increased from virtual representation (1 paper/year) to 19 papers per year in 1997.

Serum levels of type I procollagen C-terminal propeptide, insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I), and IGF binding protein-3 in obese children and adolescents: relationship to gender, pubertal development, growth, insulin, and nutritional status.

We measured fasting serum levels of type I procollagen C-terminal propeptide (PICP), insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I), and IGF binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3) in obese children and adolescents (obese subjects [OS]) to evaluate their relationship to growth, gender, pubertal stage, and weight excess (WE). The influence of insulin, growth hormone (GH), and weight loss was also studied. The study population consisted of 244 OS and 236 normal-weight subjects (NWS) matched for age, gender, and pubertal stage.

Double-blind randomized phase I study on the clinical tolerance and biological effects of natural and recombinant interferon-beta.

The clinical tolerance of and the effects recombinant human interferon-beta (rHuIFN-beta) obtained from mammalian cells (Chinese hamster ovary cells) exerts on 2',5'-oligoadenyl (2-5A) synthetase activity, human-Mx protein, neopterin, beta 2-microglobulin, interleukin-1 (IL-1) alpha and beta synthesis were compared to those of natural IFN-beta in 12 healthy volunteers. Each subject received a single i.m.