Serum fetuin-A levels are associated with carotid intima-media thickness in patients with normotensive chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Background: There are contradictory reports about the relationship between fetuin-A and atherosclerotic process. Coronary artery disease is the most important cause of mortality in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). We aimed to investigate the association of serum fetuin-A level with mean carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT) and ankle-brachial index (ABI) in COPD.

Diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder with the MMPI: PK scale scores in somatization disorder.

Clinic patients with diagnoses of either major depression or somatization disorder were given the MMPI. Women with somatization disorder had high scores on Keane's MMPI scale (PK) for posttraumatic stress disorder. Following the procedure for the MMPI-2 (46 of the 49 PK items and MMPI-2 norms), 59% of the women with somatization disorder and 21% of the women with major depression would have T scores > or = 65 on the MMPI-2 scale although none of them were known to have developed psychiatric disorder after exposure to a life threatening event.

MMPI screening scales for somatization disorder.

44 items on the MMPI were identified which appear to correspond to some of the symptoms in nine of the 10 groups on the Perley-Guze checklist for somatization disorder (hysteria). This list was organized into two scales, one reflecting the total number of symptoms endorsed and the other the number of organ systems with at least one endorsed symptom. Full MMPIs were then obtained from 29 women with primary affective disorder and 37 women with somatization disorder as part of a follow-up study of a consecutive series of 500 psychiatric clinic patients seen at Washington University.