The Influence of Metabolic Therapy on Clinical and Hemodynamic Parameters in Patients With Stable Angina

DergiPark: 481896tmsjAims: The objective of our study is to investigate the antianginal activity of meldonium and its influence on the hemodynamics and clinical parameters in patients with stable angina who fall under III-IV functional classes according to the classification of the Canadian Heart Association. Methods:The study was carried out including 105 patients with stable angina pectoris who were in III-IV functional classes at the age of 42-72 years. The first group (n=52) was administered the standard treatment (beta-blockers, aspirin, atorvastatin). The second group of patients (n=53) were given a combination of basic therapy along with meldonium 10% solution of 5 ml intravenously for 10 days then 1000 mg per day orally for 10-12 weeks. Suitable healthy people were selected as the control group (n=36). Results: Patients with stable angina pectoris were characterized with the reduction of workload, double work, time loading on bicycle ergometer, increased specific and total peripheral vascular resistance, increased central sympathetic activity on heart, decreased vagal and humoral activity on heart rate. The analysis of the data indicated a decrease in the frequency of anginal attacks after treatment in the first group by 45% and reduced daily nitroglycerin requirement by 48%. Combination therapy resulted in a decrease of the parameters by 71.8% and 76%, respectively. Conclusion: After the treatment in both groups, we detected an improvement in physical exertion tolerance, reduction in total peripheral vascular resistance and sympathetic activity of the heart. Combination therapy with meldonium significantly reduced the central smypathetic activity and peripheral vascular resistance, also increased the workload, run time compared to the basic therapy

Hypogonadism and Testosterone Therapy: Associations With Cardiovascular Risk

Testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) use is increasing, primarily in men with symptomatic hypogonadism. There are many benefits associated with TRT use, including improved sexual function, improved bone mineral density, and increased free fat mass and strength. As TRT use increases, its role on cardiovascular health must be explored. While previous evidence identified no adverse cardiovascular risks associated with TRT use, more recent studies suggest that there may be an associated risk, especially in elderly men and younger men with cardiac disease. Care must be taken with TRT use in these groups of men by careful monitoring for cardiac dysfunction. While testosterone therapy has many benefits and may generally be well tolerated, those prescribing the therapy must be cognizant of the potential adverse cardiovascular risks and advise men on the potential risks versus benefits

Future Perspectives in the Diagnosis and Management of Unexplained Male Infertility

Unexplained male infertility (UMI) remains a challenge to both the physician and the patient. Currently, the management options for unexplained infertility, beyond assisted reproductive techniques, are typically limited to empiric therapies. This chapter focuses on stem cell biology and gene therapy that may offer potential treatment options for the most severe forms of male infertility, including idiopathic infertility, in the future. While stem cells and gene therapy have made some interesting advances in animal studies, there is still a need for additional research before these developments can be translated to the clinical setting

PESTO: An Integrated Query/Browser for Object Databases

This paper describes the design and implementation of PESTO (Portable Explorer of STructured Objects), a user interface that supports browsing and querying of object databases. PESTO allows users to navigate the relationships that exist among objects. In addition, users can formulate complex object queries through an integrated query paradigm ("query-in-place") that presents querying as a natural extension of browsing. PESTO is designed to be portable to any object database system that supports a high-level query language; in addition, PESTO is extensible, providing hooks for specialized predicate formation and object display tools for new data types (e.g., images or text). 1 Introduction The Garlic project at the IBM Almaden Research Center [Care95] is developing a system and associated tools for managing large quantities of heterogeneous multimedia information. The goal of Garlic is to permit both traditional and multimedia data residing in a variety of existing data repositories ..

MEN UNDERGOING PENILE PROSTHESIS HAVE SIMILAR PREOPERATIVE AND POSTOPERATIVE PENILE LENGTHS DESPITE PERCEPTIONS

Purpose: To identify preoperative parameters that better predict postoperative penile length following inflatable penile prosthesis (IPP) to aide patient expectation

Pharmacologically induced erect penile length and stretched penile lengh are both good predictors of post-inflatable prosthesis penile length

Inflatable penile prosthesis (IPP) remains the gold standard for the surgical treatment of refractory erectile dysfunction; however, current literature to aid surgeons on how best to counsel patients on their postoperative inflated penile length is lacking. The aim of this study was to identify preoperative parameters that could better predict postoperative penile length following insertion of an IPP. Twenty men were enrolled in a prospective study examining penile lengths before and after IPP surgery. Patients with Peyronie\u27s disease were excluded from this analysis. Baseline preoperative characteristics, including body mass index, history of hypertension, diabetes, Sexual Health Inventory for Men scores and/or prior radical prostatectomy were recorded. All patients underwent implantation with a three-piece inflatable Coloplast penile prosthesis. We compared stretched penile length to pharmacologically induced erect lengths. Postoperatively, we measured inflated penile lengths at 6 weeks and assessed patients\u27 perception of penile size at 12 weeks. The median (+/- interquartile range) stretched penile length and pharmacologically induced erect penile length was 15 (+/- 3) and 14.25 (+/- 2) cm, respectively (P = 0.5). Median post-prosthesis penile length (13.5 +/- 2.13 cm) was smaller than preoperative pharmacologically induced length (P = 0.02) and preoperative stretched penile length (P = 0.01). The majority of patients (70%) had a decrease in penile length (median loss 0.5 +/- 1.5 cm); however, this loss was perceptible by 43% of men. Stretched penile length and pharmacologically induced erect penile length were equally good predictors of postoperative inflated length (Spearman\u27s correlation 0.8 and 0.9, respectively). Pharmacologically induced erect penile length and stretched penile lengths are equal predictors of post-prosthesis penile length. The majority of men will experience some decrease in penile length following prosthesis implantation; howeve

Fuzz Revisited: A Re-examination of the Reliability of UNIX Utilities and Services

We have tested the reliability of a large collection of basic UNIX utility programs, X-Window applications and servers, and network services. We used a simple testing method of subjecting these programs to a random input stream. Our testing methods and tools are largely automatic and simple to use. We tested programs on nine versions of the UNIX operating system, including seven commercial systems and the freely-available GNU utilities and Linux. We report which programs failed on which systems, and identify and categorize the causes of these failures. The result of our testing is that we can crash (with core dump) or hang (infinite loop) over 40% (in the worst case) of the basic programs and over 25% of the X-Window applications. We were not able to crash any of the network services that we tested nor any of X-Window servers. This study parallels our 1990 study (that tested only the basic UNIX utilities); all systems that we compared between 1990 and 1995 noticeably improved in reliab..

Supplementary Material for: Skin Infections due to Bacteria in Solid Organ Transplant Recipients: A Review

<p>Though there is an abundance of information on cutaneous malignancies in transplant recipients, cutaneous infections in solid organ transplant recipients (SOTRs) are underrepresented in the dermatological literature. Our paper provides a comprehensive review of bacterial cutaneous infections within the solid organ transplant population. Cutaneous bacterial infections may lead to significant morbidity and even mortality in this immunosuppressed population. Thus, it is to the benefit of both dermatologists and other transplant care providers to better understand and recognize the features of cutaneous bacterial infections in SOTRs. This paper can aid providers in promptly identifying, diagnosing, and treating bacterial skin infections. This review discusses the diagnosis and treatment of the following bacterial species: <i>Staphylococcus</i>, <i>Streptococcus</i>, <i>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</i>, <i>Escherichia coli</i>, <i>Nocardia</i>, <i>Mycobacteria</i>, and <i>Bartonella henselae</i>.</p