The renal vasculature of Wistar Kyoto spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR), prior to (4-5 week) and during established hypertension (21 week) and those of age-matched Wistar Kyoto normotensive rats (WKY) were morphometrically and pharmacologically studied. Under dilated conditions, the vascular resistances (RVR) of the isolated kidneys of young and adult SHR were similar to WKY. Morphometric m...

The present study was performed to examine the hypothesis that autoregulation-related changes in renal vascular resistance (RVR) are mediated by extracellular ATP. By use of a microdialysis method, renal interstitial concentrations of ATP and adenosine were measured at different renal arterial pressures (RAPs) within the autoregulatory range in anesthetized dogs (n=12). RAP was reduced in steps...

Background: Driving pressure of venous return (VR) is determined by a gradient between mean systemic (Pms) and central (CVP). While passive leg raising (PLR) pneumatic compression PC (PC) can increase VR, no study has explored the effects these two procedures on Pms VR-related hemodynamic variables. Methods: Forty patients with acute circulatory failure were enrolled in this analysis. All obtai...

The contralateral kidney of 2-kidney, 1-clip hypertensive (2K1C) rats is unable to escape the renal vasoconstrictive and sodium-retaining effects of increased circulating angiotensin II levels. Evidence is accumulating that renal function is relatively preserved by enhanced influence of NO in the contralateral kidney. In this study, we investigated (1) whether the high NO dependency of renal he...

Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) play an important role in impairing the function of T cells. We characterized MDSCs in two chronic hepatitis C (CHC) cohorts: a cross-sectional group that included 61 treatment-naive patients with CHC, 14 rapid virologic response (RVR) cases and 22 early virologic response (EVR) cases; and a longitudinal group of 13 cases of RVR and 10 cases of EVR after...

OBJECTIVES Recent reports demonstrated in vitro the efficacy of fluvastatin in inhibiting hepatitis C virus (HCV) replication and a synergistic effect in association with interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha). In vivo the inhibition of HCV replication by statins has not been demonstrated. We evaluated in this open-label, randomized controlled study the efficacy of fluvastatin as adjuvant to pegylated-(P...

Background: Achievement of early viral suppression is important in patients with chronic HCV infection treated with telaprevir (TLV) or boceprevir (BOC) to avoid selection of drug resistance and attain cure. No head-to-head studies comparing TLV and BOC have been performed so far. Methods: All consecutive individuals who initiated triple HCV therapy with TLV or BOC outside clinical trials at th...

The conventional maximum likelihood linear regression (MLLR)-based adaptation algorithm employed to acoustic hidden Markov models (HMMs) is too restricted in linear regression to represent the details of mapping charateristics. To overcome this problem, we propose the relevance vector regression (RVR)-based model parameter adaptation technique. In this framework, the conventional technique is e...

THE CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE of the repetitive ventricular response (RVR) has become an issue of considerable interest and controversy.'-6 Despite the interest and efforts of several investigators, definite conclusions about its significance are not possible. In fact, the clinical and electrophysiologic aspects of the RVR have been a source of confusion, particularly for those not well acquainted ...

OBJECTIVE To determine the change in rapid virological response for chronic hepatitis C by qualitative PCR testing after treatment with sofosbuvir. STUDY DESIGN A descriptive study. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY Memon Medical Institute Hospital, Karachi, from January to September 2016. METHODOLOGY The study population consisted of patients above 18 years, till 80 years of age, of both gende...