Klippel-Trenaunay-Weber syndrome with abdominal hemangiomata appearing on ultrasound examination as intestinal obstruction.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to A Athanasiades.
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The PBM package was developed to create, display and conveniently manipulate protein and small molecule structures on IBM-compatible microcomputers. It consists of four modules: CREATE, SPHERE, RIBBON and CONVERT. CREATE includes commands to create or alter ('mutate') the primary and subsequently the tertiary structure of a given peptide or protein by defining phi and psi angles of residues at will, options to add, delete or alter atoms in a structure, utilities to choose easily between the most common rotamers of amino acid residue sidechains and options to analyse in various ways a protein conformation. SPHERE provides for an interactive manipulation of structures containing up to 2700 atoms which can belong up to six different molecules. All manipulations can be made with the use of an ordinary mouse, by choosing from a variety of pull-down menus. Three types of models can be implemented to display molecules on the computer screen or the plotter: skeletal, solid space-filling and wireframe space-filling models. RIBBON creates ribbon models of proteins and allows for a limited variety of interactive manipulations. CONVERT is a file converter, which is capable of converting files of atom coordinates of literally any format to Brookhaven Data Bank format files. The package produces very good results for protein molecules of reasonable sizes, both in terms of graphics quality and speed of operations, on an 80486 IBM PC-compatible machine equipped with a 1 MByte VGA display card and a colour VGA monitor, which is a recommended configuration.
50 women with advanced breast cancer were treated with an intensified regimen which consisted of high-dose epirubicin (110 mg/m2) every 2 weeks and filgrastim (5 micrograms/kg) subcutaneously for 13 days, starting 24 h after chemotherapy. 44 patients completed all six cycles. The median interval between cycles of treatment was 14.3 days. The actually administered median dose per unit time per patient was 53 mg/m2/week, amounting to 97.2% of the dose prescribed by the protocol. 7 [14%, 95% confidence interval (C.I.) 4-24%] patients achieved a complete and 25 (50%, 95% C.I. 36-64%) a partial response. Median time to progression was 32 weeks and median survival 64 weeks. Stomatitis and fever each occurred in 7 (14%) patients. Grade 3 haematological toxicity was observed in 6 (12%) patients. 1 (2%) patient developed grade 4 cardiac toxicity. This intensified regimen appears to be a well tolerated and effective treatment in advanced breast cancer.
It is described a handy staining of cytological smears suitable for out-patients department use. On a dry not fixed smear we put a drop of 0,25% of aqueous solution blue de methylene and we cover it with a cover slide. The smear is stained in a few seconds and the stain remains for half an hour.
Neurons of the mammalian medullary respiratory center have complex patterns of electrophysiological behavior. Three typical phenomena associated with these patterns are spike frequency adaptation (SFA), delayed excitation (DE), and postinhibitory rebound (PIR). Although several nuclei are associated with the medullary-pontine respiratory center, we focused on neurons from two nuclei: (1) the ventral subnucleus of the nucleus tractus solitarius (vNTS) of the dorsal respiratory group and (2) the nucleus ambiguus (NA) of the ventral respiratory group. We developed a Hodgkin-Huxley (HH) type model of the typical medullary neuron that is capable of mimicking the discharge pattern of real neurons to a very high degree. Closer examination of typical data revealed, however, that there was not one type of medullary respiratory neuron, but at least three (types A, B1, and B2). We classified these neurons based on the electrophysiologic phenomena that they exhibited (type A exhibits DE but not PIR; types B1 and B2 exhibit PIR but not DE; all types are adapting). Our objective was to relate each of these well-known phenomena to specific ionic current mechanisms. In the model, three currents directly affect the phenomena investigated: the Ca2+-activated K+ current, I(K,Ca), controls peak and steady-state firing rates and the time constant of adaptation; the transient outward K+ current, I(A), is responsible for all aspects of DE, including the dependence of delay on the magnitude and duration of conditioning hyperpolarization; and the hyperpolarization-activated current, Ih, elicits PIR and dictates its dependencies. We consider that our HH model represents a unifying structure, whereby different electrophysiological phenomena or discharge patterns can be emulated using different strengths of the component ionic membrane currents (particularly I(K,Ca), I(A), and Ih). Moreover, its predictions suggest that the electrophysiological characteristics of medullary respiratory neurons, from different areas of the brainstem and even from different species, can be modeled using the same structural framework, wherein the specific properties of individual neurons are emulated by adjusting the strengths of key ionic membrane currents in the model.
AIMS AND BACKGROUND: The purpose of this multicenter randomized, open-label, parallel-group study was to assess whether the addition of low-dose dexamethasone to ondansetron results in improved control of chemotherapy-induced emesis in patients undergoing first-line chemotherapy with high-dose epirubicin. METHODS & STUDY DESIGN: Patients were randomized to receive either 24 mg of ondansetron or 24 mg of ondansetron plus 8 mg of dexamethasone administered as an intravenous infusion 30 minutes prior to administration of chemotherapy. Both groups of patients received 8 mg of ondansetron given orally from day 2 to 5 two times daily. Fifty-three patients received ondansetron and 50 received ondansetron plus dexamethasone. The patients recorded nausea and the number of vomits and retches daily on diary cards. RESULTS: Significantly more patients in the ondansetron plus dexamethasone group experienced neither vomiting nor retching during the first day of the first course of chemotherapy compared to those receiving ondansetron alone (79.6% vs 53.8%, P = 0.0062). Furthermore, there was a trend in favor of ondansetron plus dexamethasone in the control of nausea. There was no statistically significant difference between ondansetron plus dexamethasone versus ondansetron alone in protecting patients from emesis between days 2 and 5 of the first course of chemotherapy (66.7% vs 62.7%, P = 0.68). This was probably due to the small sample size. Ondansetron was well tolerated, with 15 patients (15%) reporting adverse events such as headache or constipation. CONCLUSIONS: It appears that ondansetron given intravenously in combination with dexamethasone is more effective than ondansetron alone in the control of acute emesis in patients undergoing their first course of chemotherapy with high-dose epirubicin. No difference between the regimens was found with regard to nausea and delayed emesis control.