Regulation of peripheral blood flow in Complex Regional Pain Syndrome: clinical implication for symptomatic relief and pain management

Background. During the chronic stage of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), impaired microcirculation is related to increased vasoconstriction, tissue hypoxia, and metabolic tissue acidosis in the affected limb. Several mechanisms may be responsible for the ischemia and pain in chronic cold CPRS. Discussion. The diminished blood flow may be caused by either sympathetic dysfunction, hypersensitivity to circulating catecholamines, or endothelial dysfunction. The pain may be of neuropathic, inflammatory, nociceptive, or functional nature, or of mixed origin. Summary. The origin of the pain should be the basis of the symptomatic therapy. Since the difference in temperature between both hands fluctuates over time in cold CRPS, when in doubt, the clinician should prioritize the patient's report of a persistent cold extremity over clinical tests that show no difference. Future research should focus on developing easily applied methods for clinical use to differentiate between central and peripheral blood flow regulation disorders in individual patients

Solvent Extraction of Metal Ions from Contaminated Soils

The most important result of this work is to show that water-insoluble chelators have the same yield at extracting metal ions from contaminated soils when they are dissolved in a mostly aqueous, non-toxic solvent solution (e.g. a 99% water-1% ethanol mixture), as when more toxic systems (e.g. a 50% water-50% acetone mixture) are used. In addition, the solvent solution can be composed mainly of water, with only a very small amount (1% in our case) of solvent added to dissolve the complexing agent. These results extend and generalize those previously presented by Mauri and coworkers