BACKGROUND In North-African adults, location-specific reference values for membrane diffusion capacity (D(m)) and pulmonary capillary blood volume (V(c)) were needed. OBJECTIVES To verify the applicability of previously published reference equations for D(m) and V(c) in North-African healthy adults (age >18 years) and to determine specific reference equations for North Africa. METHODS The s...

OBJECTIVE To assess the results of a refined approach to repair of postcholecystectomy bile duct strictures. DESIGN An 11-year retrospective review of patients who had surgical repair of bile duct strictures developing late after cholecystectomy. SETTING A major university teaching hospital in France. PATIENTS AND INTERVENTIONS During an 11-year period from 1987 to 1997, 22 patients (mean...

BACKGROUND In recent years more and more genetic defects along the GHRH-GH-IGF-I axis have been reported. Mutations of the IGF-I receptor (R) are a rare abnormality of whom only the heterozygote progenies survive. OBJECTIVES To summarize, from the literature, data on birth length, weight and head circumference of neonates with IGF-I-R mutations, and to correlate the data with that of other ty...

Macroalbuminuria, defined as urine albumin excretion rate (AER)≥300 mg/d, has long been considered a stage of irreversible kidney damage that leads reliably to GFR loss. We examined the long-term renal outcomes of persons with type 1 diabetes who developed incident macroalbuminuria during the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT)/Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complication...

BACKGROUND Although obesity is a well-studied risk factor for diabetes, there remains an interest in whether "increasing body mass index (BMI)," "high BMI per se," or both are the actual risk factors for diabetes. The present study aimed to retrospectively compare BMI trajectories of individuals with and without diabetes in a case-control design and to assess whether increasing BMI alone would ...

No prior research has examined how motivation for goal striving influences persistence in the face of increasing goal difficulty. This research examined the role of self-reported (Study 1) and primed (Study 2) autonomous and controlled motives in predicting objectively assessed persistence during the pursuit of an increasingly difficult goal. In Study 1, 100 British athletes (64 males; M(age)  ...

The age at diagnosis of 242 girls with Turner syndrome (TS) treated in Belgium with growth hormone between 1991 and 2002 was evaluated. The median (range) age at diagnosis was 6.6 (0-18.3) years. Patients with 45,X karyotype were diagnosed earlier than patients with other karyotypes. Compared to a previous survey, performed on 100 patients 12 years earlier, more patients were diagnosed during i...

AIM Among the many biological effects which occur during orthodontic movement, we decided to investigate gingival microcirculation. The aim of the study was to evaluate the biological microvascular response to the application of orthodontic force in vivo. MATERIALS AND METHODS Forty patients (case group) between 9-22 years of age (average± DS 12±3.01) were selected for the study (M/F ratio: 2...

BACKGROUND The significant increase in the popularity of breast augmentation surgeries has led to an increase in the number and types of complications; among these is the postoperative occurrence of Striae Distensae (SD). The objective of this study was to investigate the incidence of SD and describing its occurrence in association with age, breast implant volume, history of SD, history of preg...

BACKGROUND The relation between cardiovascular risk factors and extent of atherosclerosis in middle-aged and elderly populations is well established. Autopsy studies have suggested that similar associations may be present at a young age. We evaluated the relationship between conventional risk factors and increased carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) in 750 healthy young adults, aged 27 to 30 ...