Management of patients with syncope referred urgently to general hospitals.

Objective: To evaluate the incidence and the strategy of management of syncope admitted urgently to a general hospital.

Background: The management of patients with syncope is not standardized.

Methods: The study was a prospective observational registry from a sample of 28 general hospitals in Italy and enroled all consecutive patients referred to their emergency rooms from November 5th 2001 to December 7th 2001 who were affected by transient loss of consciousness as the principal symptom.

Clinical and electrophysiological characteristics in patients with atrioventricular reentrant and atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia.

Aim: To compare clinical, electrophysiological characteristics and transcatheter ablation results between two groups of patients, one with atrioventricular reentrant tachycardia (AVRT) and the other with atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia (AVNRT).

Methods: The study population consisted of 94 consecutive patients who underwent endocavitary electrophysiological study and radiofrequency (RF) ablation: 46 patients had AVRT due to an accessory pathway with only retrograde conduction while 48 patients had AVNRT.

Results: In relation to general and clinical characteristics, differences between the two groups emerged regarding the age of symptom onset (25+/-16 vs 37+/-17 years, p=0.

Edge displacement field-based classification for improved detection of polyps in CT colonography.

Colorectal cancer can easily be prevented provided that the precursors to tumors, small colonic polyps, are detected and removed. Currently, the only definitive examination of the colon is fiber-optic colonoscopy, which is invasive and expensive. Computed tomographic colonography (CTC) is potentially a less costly and less invasive alternative to FOC.

A statistical 3-D pattern processing method for computer-aided detection of polyps in CT colonography.

Adenomatous polyps in the colon are believed to be the precursor to colorectal carcinoma, the second leading cause of cancer deaths in United States. In this paper, we propose a new method for computer-aided detection of polyps in computed tomography (CT) colonography (virtual colonoscopy), a technique in which polyps are imaged along the wall of the air-inflated, cleansed colon with X-ray CT. Initial work with computer aided detection has shown high sensitivity, but at a cost of too many false positives.

[Comparison of clinical and electrophysiologic characteristics of patients with occult and manifest atrioventricular accessory pathway].

Background: It is current opinion that concealed and manifest accessory pathways (APs) are indistinguishable with respect to their location and contribution to orthodromic reciprocating tachycardias. The aim of this study was to compare clinical and electrophysiological characteristics of two groups of patients.

Methods: Between January 1999 and June 2000, 42 consecutive patients underwent radiofrequency catheter ablation for paroxysmal atrioventricular reciprocating tachycardia attributable to a concealed AP.

Three months versus one year of oral anticoagulant therapy for idiopathic deep venous thrombosis. Warfarin Optimal Duration Italian Trial Investigators.

Background: In patients with idiopathic deep venous thrombosis, continuing anticoagulant therapy beyond three months is associated with a reduced incidence of recurrent thrombosis during the period of therapy. Whether this benefit persists after anticoagulant therapy is discontinued is controversial.

Methods: Patients with a first episode of idiopathic proximal deep venous thrombosis who had completed three months of oral anticoagulant therapy (with warfarin, in 97 percent of the cases and acenocoumarol in 3 percent) were randomly assigned to the discontinuation of oral anticoagulants or to their continuation for nine additional months.

Efficacy and safety of out-of-hospital self-administered single-dose oral drug treatment in the management of infrequent, well-tolerated paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia.

Objectives: We tested the efficacy of two drug treatments, flecainide (F) and the combination ofdiltiazem and propranolol (D/P), administered as a single oral dose for termination of the arrhythmic episodes.

Background: Both prophylactic drug therapy and catheter ablation are questionable as first-line treatments in patients with infrequent and well-tolerated episodes of paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia (SVT).

Methods: Among 42 eligible patients (13% of all screened for SVT) with infrequent (< or =5/year), well-tolerated and long-lasting episodes, 37 were enrolled and 33 had SVT inducible during electrophysiological study.

Early exposure to restraint stress enhances chemical carcinogenesis in rat liver.

This study examines the effect of a stress-associated condition on chemical hepatocarcinogenesis in the rat. Rats were given diethylnitrosamine (200 mg/kg. b.

Effect of fasting/refeeding on the incidence of chemically induced hepatocellular carcinoma in the rat.

Caloric restriction has been associated with a delay in the development of both spontaneous and induced neoplasia. In contrast, cycles of fasting/refeeding were shown by us and others to enhance the incidence of early lesions during chemical carcinogenesis in rat liver. The present, long-term study was undertaken to establish whether such a diffential effect would also extend to the later phases of cancer development, until the overt appearance of neoplasia.

Fasting-induced apoptosis in rat liver is blocked by cycloheximide.

The effect of cycloheximide (CH) on the fasting-induced changes of rat liver cell and protein turnover has been investigated. Late starvation phase (3-4-day-fasting period) was characterised by a decrease in liver weight and protein and DNA content. The loss of DNA was not related to liver cell necrosis but due not only to depression of cell proliferation as shown by the drop in the labelling index but also induction of apoptosis.

D-dimer testing as an adjunct to ultrasonography in patients with clinically suspected deep vein thrombosis: prospective cohort study. The Multicentre Italian D-dimer Ultrasound Study Investigators Group.

Objective: To investigate the efficacy of using a rapid plasma D-dimer test as an adjunct to compression ultrasound for diagnosing clinically suspected deep vein thrombosis.

Design: D-dimer concentrations were determined in all patients with a normal ultrasonogram at presentation. Repeat ultrasonography was performed 1 week later only in patients with abnormal D-dimer test results.

A subnecrogenic dose of diethylnitrosamine is able to initiate hepatocarcinogenesis in the rat when coupled with fasting/refeeding.

Caloric restriction causes a generalized decrease in growth rate and has been repeatedly associated with an inhibitory effect on cancer development in several systems. In contrast, exposure to complete fasting followed by refeeding is a metabolic condition associated with increased cell turnover in different organs, including the liver. The present study examines whether such condition is able to sustain the induction of initiated hepatocytes following a subnecrogenic dose of diethylnitrosamine (DENA).

Usefulness of Biplanar Transesophageal Echocardiography in Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Dysplasia: Clinical Experience with Seven Cases.

This study evaluated the clinical usefulness of biplanar transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) in suspected arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia (ARVD). Seven symptomatic subjects (3 male and 4 female: ages 18-64 years, mean 45) with clinical features of ARVD (typical ventricular arrhythmias) underwent comprehensive noninvasive assessment including transthoracic echocardiography (TTE), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and TEE. Other systemic and cardiac diseases were reasonably excluded.

Carotid sinus syncope: the most frequent neurally mediated syncope in the elderly.

The present work reviews current literature and the authors' experience of carotid sinus syndrome (CSS), which is considered to be the most common cause of neurally mediated acute disorders of consciousness in the elderly. Although no definitive consensus about its nosology has yet been reached, most groups agree that three features fulfill the diagnosis: anamnestic presence of syncope or its minor equivalents, and their reproduction by carotid sinus massage associated with defined values of cardioinhibition or vasodepression or both. The technique for performing carotid sinus massage used by the authors is described; this manoeuvre seems very safe and reproducible as long as simple rules are followed, and it allows the classification of CSS types.

Shape and motion from image streams: a factorization method.

Inferring scene geometry and camera motion from a stream of images is possible in principle, but it is an ill-conditioned problem when the objects are distant with respect to their size. We have developed a factorization method that can overcome this difficulty by recovering shape and motion without computing depth as an intermediate step. An image stream can be represented by the 2F x P measurement matrix of the image coordinates of P points tracked through F frames.

[Effects of chronic administration of nifedipine on echo-Doppler parameters of left ventricular filling in hypertensive patients].

This study aimed determining the chronic effects of nifedipine (N) on left ventricular filling in 25 patients (mean age 55) with mild to moderate arterial hypertension. M-mode, B-mode and pulsed Doppler measurements were performed at baseline, after 30 min from administration of sublingual N (10 mg) and after 6 months of therapy with slow release N (max dose: 60 mg die). Acute and chronic N reduced significantly both systolic (p less than 0.