We assessed the effect of the vasodilating calcium channel blocker nitrendipine on glucose tolerance in young spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) (n = 15). The nitrendipine group received 1 g/kg chow for 3 weeks. Untreated SHR (n = 14) served as controls. At 3 weeks body weight was comparable, whereas systolic blood pressure was 157 +/- 9 mm Hg in nitrendipine-treated rats versus 191 +/- 10 m...

BACKGROUND We report the outcome of debridement and prosthesis retention plus long-term levofloxacin/rifampicin treatment of prosthetic joint infections. METHODS Staphylococcal prosthesis joint infections were defined by positive culture of joint aspirate, intraoperative debridement specimens, or sinus tract discharge in the presence of clinical criteria. Patients received long-term oral levo...

A meta-analysis of six randomized clinical trials involving 240 children with chronic hepatitis B treated with recombinant interferon-a (IFN-a) was performed. IFN-a treatment was effective in blocking viral replication. Clearance of hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA from sera occurred in 44 of 127 treated patients (P < .00001),and clearance of hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) occurred in seven of 74 tre...

Instructions: I expect you to work on the problems by yourself. You can refer to any textbook (or the technical literature in general), but not confer with any person. 1. Short Questions (a) How many bits are needed to specify a selection of k objects from n objects? (n and k are assumed to be known and the selection of k objects is unordered.) (b) Either prove that the following code is unique...

Tumor necrosis factor(TNF), a cytokine possessing pleiotropic biological activities, is produced by leukemic lymphocytes in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and acts as an autocrine and paracrine growth factor in this disease. In this study, TNFlevels were determined in 150 patients with CLL and correlated with disease characteristics, prognostic factors, and survival. The mean ...

We investigated the hematopoietic reservoir in 43 severe aplastic anemia (SAA) patients following immunosuppression (IS) (n = 15) or bone marrow transplantation (BMT) (n = 28), at a median interval of 5 years (range, 2-20) from treatment. All patients had normal blood counts, good marrow cellularity, and normal numbers of colony forming unit-granulocyte macrophages (CFU-GM). Burst forming unit-...

It is assumed that genetic factors may participate in the development of diabetic nephropathy (DN). The association between TCF7L2 gene polymorphism and DN risk is still unclear. To evaluate the relationship, we performed this meta-analysis. Eligible relevant studies were searched and selected from PubMed, Embase, and ISI Web of Science. Summary effect estimates were derived using a random effe...

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the use of computer-assisted surgery can improve the clinical results in total knee arthroplasty (TKA) compared with conventional methods of TKA.A literature search of PubMed (1966 to August 2011), CENTRAL (Cochrane Controlled Trials Register; issue 3, 2011), and EMBASE (1984 to August 2011) was conducted. Randomized, controlled trials detectin...

CONTEXT Children who experienced intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) may be at increased risk for adverse neurologic developmental outcomes during the school-age years of life. OBJECTIVE To estimate the effect of IUGR on cognition and behavior in school-aged children. DATA SOURCES Medline, Embase, and PsycINFO were searched for English-language articles published after 1980. DATA SELEC...