[Rehabilitation program in patients with moderate-to-severe intermittent claudication: immediate results and one year follow-up].

Background: Physical training is believed the primary treatment of claudication symptoms. Although exercise therapy is self-effective, some drugs improving functional capacity have additive effects. TASC (Trans Atlantic Society Consensus) considers Propionil-L-Carnitine (PLC) and prostaglandin-E1 (PGE1) as poorly studied drugs with potential benefits in improving claudication.

[Evaluation of the appropriateness of prescribing non-invasive cardiologic tests].

Background: We evaluated the appropriateness of the prescription of echocardiography, exercise testing, Holter monitoring and vascular sonography for ambulatory patients, performed during 4 weeks in 21 outpatient laboratories in Tuscany and Umbria, Italy.

Methods: We collected the following data: the appropriateness of the prescription (according to the guidelines of the Italian Federation of Cardiology), the prescribing physician (cardiologist vs noncardiologist), the synthetic result (normal vs abnormal) and the clinical utility (useful vs useless) of each exam.

Results: We evaluated 5614 prescriptions (patients: 3027 males, 2587 females; mean age 63 years, range 14-96 years).

[Acute myocardial infarction in pregnancy in a patient with pseudoaneurysm of the left main coronary artery].

Myocardial infarction during pregnancy is a rare event and it can be associated both with obstructive coronary artery disease and with functional conditions such as vasospasm. We report a 28-year-old woman without coronary artery disease risk factors, who suffered a Q infarction at 38th week of gestation, complicated by ventricular fibrillation. A healthy child was delivered by cesarean section and the woman made a full recovery.

Testicular function in hypercholesterolemic male patients during prolonged simvastatin treatment.

Simvastatin is a very effective hypocholesterolemic drug which, reducing cholesterol biosynthesis, can affect normal steroid hormone production. Testes require a continuous cholesterol supply for testosterone synthesis and this can be derived from low density lipoprotein receptor-mediated uptake or from de novo local synthesis. The aim of the study was to see if prolonged simvastatin treatment compromised endocrine testicular function both in basal conditions and after stimulation by human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG) (Profasi 5,000 Ul, i.

Two novel partial deletions of LDL-receptor gene in Italian patients with familial hypercholesterolemia (FH Siracusa and FH Reggio Emilia).

In the present study we report two novel partial deletions of the LDL-R gene. The first (FH Siracusa), found in an FH-heterozygote, consists of a 20 kb deletion spanning from the 5' flanking region to the intron 2 of the LDL-receptor gene. The elimination of the promoter and the first two exons prevents the transcription of the deleted allele, as shown by Northern blot analysis of LDL-R mRNA isolated from the proband's fibroblasts.