In this longitudinal study of a general population sample, remissions of asthma were common only during the second decade of life and were especially unusual in subjects ages 30 to 60 years on enrollment. Asthmatic subjects with severe symptoms, with reduced ventilatory function, or with a concomitant diagnosis of chronic bronchitis or emphysema on entry to the study were very unlikely to be in...

Xanthelasma can be treated with acids, laser or primary suture, all presenting frequent relapses besides being inefficacious in extensive cases. The authors present the functional and esthetic result of a female patient's case with extensive xanthelasmas on the upper and lower eyelids which were removed combined with upper and lower blepharoplasty, using the skin removed from the upper eyelids ...

Seventy-five patients in London and Belfast with multiple sclerosis were given daily supplements of a vegetable oil mixture containing either linoleate or oleate for two years in a double-blind control trial. Relapses tended to be less frequent and were significantly less severe and of shorter duration in the linoleate-supplemented group than in those receiving the oleate mixture, but clear evi...

Clinicians in Madrid have been observing and treating HIV-positive patients with visceral leishmaniasis (VL) for over a decade. As their records cover some of the co-infection cases that occurred before and after highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) was introduced into Spain, retrospective analysis of the records has allowed some of the effects of HAART on local VL to be determined. Enc...

Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is a frequent neoplastic disease which has shown an increasing incidence during recent years, particularly in women. Because of the high sensitivity of chemotherapy, remission is usually achieved with standard regimens. However, relapses are common and 5-year survival is < 10%. Over the last few years intensive chemotherapy with or without stem cell support has bee...

Localized Nodular Lymphocyte Predominant Hodgkin Lymphoma is a rare disease with an overall good prognosis but frequent late relapses. Due to it's rarity there is no standard therapeutic approach and pathological diagnosis may be hard. In this paper we discuss the technical aspects of the radiation therapy and histological issues. The new fields reductions proposed for classical Hodgkin lymphom...

The colorectal cancer (CRC) is a most frequent cause of cancer-related deaths. Surgical tumor resection remains the primary curative treatment for CRC but nearly 50% of patients with macroscopic clearance of the tumor by surgery relapses. For this purpose new complementary treatments, such as immunotherapy, are being explored. In this article, we analyze and discuss the clinical immunotherapy v...

Chemotherapy with taxanes has recently become part of the treatment for many advanced neoplastic diseases, specially breast and lung cancer. Their main noncutaneous adverse reactions include neutropenia and mucositis, which eventually lead to drug discontinuation. Cutaneous adverse reactions are frequent and significantly interfere with the patient's quality of life. Treatments are poorly effec...

Clostridium difficile remains the major cause of nosocomial diarrhea. Reports on impaired susceptibility of C. difficile to metronidazole and vancomycin and frequent relapses of patients after therapy necessitate the search for new substances. With this study, the activity of OPT-80, a new macrocycle, against 207 C. difficile strains and against other obligately anaerobic bacteria was tested. O...

Between August 1970 and January 1971 nearly 150 of the staff of a London teaching hospital were affected by an illness with features in common with what is currently known as epidemic neuromyasthenia. Symptomatology was protean, clinical findings minimal, relapses frequent, and results of laboratory investigations, including virological studies, were generally negative. Most of the patients wer...