Epicardial fat thickness as cardiovascular risk factor and therapeutic target in patients with rheumatoid arthritis treated with biological and nonbiological therapies.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disease associated with high cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) thickness may act as a therapeutic target during treatments with drugs modulating the adipose tissue. We evaluate EAT thickness in RA patients treated with biological and nonbiological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs).

Epicardial adipose tissue thickness and its association with adiponectin in metabolic syndrome patients from Mérida, Venezuela.

Objective: To study the relationship between epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) thickness and plasma levels of adiponectin in Venezuelan patients.

Subjects And Methods: Thirty-one patients diagnosed with metabolic syndrome (study group) and 27 controls were selected and tested for glycemia, lipids, and adiponectin. EAT thickness, ejection fraction, diastolic function, left ventricular mass (LVM), and left atrial volume (LAV) were determined by transthoracic echocardiography.

Infantile botulism: clinical and laboratory observations of a rare neuroparalytic disease.

A 3-month-old male infant was admitted to the University Hospital of Los Andes with a history of constipation, weak crying, poor feeding, flaccidity and later bilateral ptosis and hyporeflexia. The admission diagnosis was septicaemia until an electrophysiological study reported postetanic facilitation with 50 Hz/seg stimulations four days later. The Clostridium botulinum toxin type B was isolated from the infant's stool samples and the organism grew in anaerobic cultures.

Effect of ketoconazole on plasma sex hormones, lipids, lipoproteins, and apolipoproteins in hyperandrogenic women.

The aim of the current study of 18 hyperandrogenic women was to determine the affects of ketoconazole (KTZ), an oral synthetic antifungal imidazole derivative that inhibits gonadal and adrenal steroidogenesis, on lipids, lipoprotein cholesterols, apolipoproteins, endogenous sex steroid hormones, and their interactions. Eighteen hyperandrogenic women, ages 18 to 35, with a history of severe acne and/or hirsutism, were randomly divided into two groups of nine, both receiving KTZ (group 1, 400 mg/d; group 2,800 mg/d) for 10 days. In groups 1 and 2, KTZ therapy reduced cholesterol (10%, P less than or equal to .