PURPOSE Clot-burden change in patients receiving anticoagulant therapy, by predicting subsequent recurrent venous thromboembolism, may provide a clinically relevant surrogate endpoint of prognostic importance. The validity of this objective measure is yet to be established. METHODS A PubMed search was performed to retrieve articles published up to December 2003. We identified 11 randomized tr...

• Background: Many patients are asking about weight reduction diets publicized in the lay press, such as “Protein Power,” “Sugar Busters,” and “Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution.” A common theme of these diets is the restriction of carbohydrate intake. • Objective: To summarize the published medical literature regarding very low carbohydrate (< 40 g/day) diets. • Methods: A MEDLINE search and han...

The most popular high protein diets are 'Atkins Diet', the 'Zone Diet', and 'Sugar Busters!'. Another eating plan that has been given some exposure on Australian TV is the 'Slim Forever' diet. The inventors of these diets make different claims about their effects on health, ranging from weight loss to massive reduction in disease risk and vastly increased life expectancy. The concept that it ma...

BACKGROUND Severe injury induces an acute coagulopathy associated with increased mortality. This study compared the Thrombelastography (TEG) and biomarker profiles upon admission in trauma patients. METHODS Prospective observational study of 80 trauma patients admitted to a Level I Trauma Centre. Data on demography, biochemistry including standard coagulation tests, hematology, transfusions, ...

Plasmin, a directly acting thrombolytic agent, demonstrated a very favorable safety profile upon intra-arterial delivery to the clot site; however, its thrombolytic efficacy remains to be further assessed. In this study, differences in thrombolysis between clots exposed to equimolar concentrations of plasmin and recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator (rt-PA) after partial vessel recanali...

OBJECTIVES The aim of our study was to evaluate, in acute ischemic stroke patients, the diagnostic accuracy of the MRI susceptibility vessel sign (SVS) against catheter angiography (DSA) for the detection of the clot and its value in predicting clot location and length. MATERIALS AND METHODS We identified consecutive patients (2006-2012) admitted to our center, where 1.5 T MRI is systematical...

BACKGROUND Factor V (FV) in its activated form, FVa, is a critical regulator of thrombin generation during fibrin clot formation. There is a need of a simple, fast, and inexpensive microplate-based coagulation assay to measure the functional activity of FV in human plasma. The objective of this study was to develop a microplate-based assay that measures FV coagulation activity during clot forma...

Incipient clot formation in whole blood and fibrin gels was studied by the rheometric techniques of controlled stress parallel superposition (CSPS) and small amplitude oscillatory shear (SAOS). The effects of unidirectional shear stress on incipient clot microstructure, formation kinetics and elasticity are reported in terms of the fractal dimension (df) of the fibrin network, the gel network f...