Nephrology and Doctors Honoris Causa at P. J. Safárik University in Kosice in the years 1993-2006 (Slovak Republic).

The authors present a brief history of the activities of 7 important and well-known foreign nephrologists in Kosice and in the region of Eastern Slovakia who were awarded the honorary title Doctor Honoris Causa by P. J. Safárik University in Kosice.

Influence of continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis on some plasma and erythrocyte vitamins--retrospective study.

This paper reports a retrospective study on the clinical and laboratory analysis of some serum and erythrocyte vitamins in our chronic renal failure patients who were treated with Continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD). In the first patient and in the next 10 patients the CAPD treatment began (in years 1980-1984) at the Internal Department-Strahov of General Faculty Hospital in Prague and after 2 or 3 weeks they continued in CAPD programme at the Dialysis Centre of IVth Internal Clinic, Faculty Hospital in Kosice. In the third group of CAPD patients (among them 8 patients were treated in Prague and 5 patients in Kosice) all biochemical parameters including vitamins were determined at Nephrological laboratory of the IVth Internal Clinic in Kosice.

The 50-year history of the Nephrology Department in Kosice (Slovak Republic).

The authors present the development of clinical nephrology from 1954 to 2004 at the Louis Pasteur Faculty Hospital and the Medical Faculty of P.J. Safárik University in Kosice (Slovak Republic), recounting its role in the delivery of preventive and therapeutic care, teaching and research.

Survival of mouse embryos after vitrification depending on the cooling rate of the cryoprotectant solution.

The aim of the study was to determine the relationship between the rate of cooling of eight-cell mouse embryos to the temperature of liquid nitrogen (-196 degrees C) and their developmental capacity after thawing on the basis of their ability to leave the zona pellucida ('hatching') during in vitro culturing. Eight-cell embryos were obtained from superovulated female mice and divided into three experimental and one control group. Embryos from the experimental groups were cryopreserved by the vitrification method using ethylene glycol as cryoprotectant.

The disease of Franz Kafka.

On June 3, 2004, 80 years have passed since the death of one of the greatest and the most important world writers of 20th century, the Prague German writer Franz Kafka. On November 5, 2004 we reminded that remarkable anniversary, which was also the 3rd anniversary of revelation of the monument of Franz Kafka in Tatranské Matliare, the High Tatras. Franz Kafka suffered from lung tuberculosis from 1917 until his death 1924.

A renal transplant patient with intractable hiccups and review of the literature.

Intractable hiccups in transplanted patients may be caused by various medical conditions including infections. We report a case of a 44-year-old man who suffered from intractable hiccups after cadaveric kidney transplantation. We identified 3 different hiccup periods with different causes: 1) steroid and anesthetics use, 2) severe ulcerose herpetic and mycotic esophagitis, and 3) pleuropneumonia caused by nosocomial methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus epidermidis and pulmonary abscess requiring thoracic surgery.

Uric acid--a marker for systemic inflammatory response in patients with congestive heart failure?

Congestive heart failure is associated with hyperuricemia and elevations in the levels of circulating markers for inflammation. The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between levels of serum uric acid, activity of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system and TNF-alpha in heart failure patients with respect to the extent of left ventricular dysfunction. Circulating uric acid, TNF-alpha, plasma renin activity and concentrations of aldosterone were measured in 30 patients with congestive heart failure, divided into subgroups according to their NYHA class (II-IV).