Intravenous vasoactive intestinal polypeptide lowers pulmonary-to-systemic vascular resistance ratio in a neonatal piglet model of pulmonary arterial hypertension.

Background: Several studies of vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP) demonstrated its potent vasodilative effects on pulmonary and systemic circulation. However, no hemodynamic studies were performed to depict the effects of VIP in an in vivo model of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), thereby limiting a complete understanding of the overall hemodynamic effects of VIP in PAH.

Methods And Results: The pulmonary and systemic hemodynamic effects of intravenous infusion of 100 ng/kg per minute of VIP in control and pulmonary hypertensive piglets at 6 to 8 weeks of age were assessed.

Portal venous gas in hypertrophic pyloric stenosis.

Portal venous gas associated with hypertrophic pyloric stenosis is a rare finding. We describe an atypical radiologic finding discovered on abdominal ultrasound and computed tomographic scan in an infant with hypertrophic pyloric stenosis. Portal venous gas in the setting of hypertrophic pyloric stenosis constitutes a benign incidental finding for which surgical treatment should not be postponed.

The transfer of patients' ethics information among cooperating institutions: a future function of ethics networks.

With increasing use of ethics resources by health care teams, the number of patients transferred from one care setting to another who may have had ethics consultations is rising rapidly. There has been virtually no discussion in the ethics literature and no experience in our community addressing questions concerning the continuity of ethics care and the transfer of ethics information. Our ethics committee faced the following questions during a recent consultation.

Therapeutic activity, clinical and gastric tolerance of 20mg daily dose of droxicam in comparison with piroxicam in patients with degenerative joint disease.

The efficacy and safety of droxicam were compared with piroxicam in a pilot study in twenty patients with degenerative joint disease. After a one week washout period a baseline gastroscopy was carried out. Treatment during the following 4 weeks was randomised to droxicam or piroxicam.

A clinical trial comparing a new NSAID (droxicam) and piroxicam in spinal osteoarthritis.

This double-blind, parallel, controlled and randomized trial compares the clinical efficacy and tolerance of a new NSAID (pro-drug of piroxicam), droxicam, at the dose of 20 mg/day against that of piroxicam at the same dose. The comparison is drawn after the administration to 30 patients with spinal osteoarthritis during 8 weeks after a single-blind placebo-period run-in of 7 days. Results show that both drugs improve, with statistical significance, all parameters evaluated (pain intensity, morning stiffness, nocturnal pain, pain after getting up and after 30 min standing, difficulty in daily living, frequency of pain exacerbations and the ability to do several daily activities).