Patients with Parkinson disease: functional analysis of dopamine receptors by bromocriptine- thyrotropin-releasing hormone test Pacientes con enfermedad de Parkinson: analisis functional de los receptores dopaminérgicos mediante la prueba de hormona liber

The bromocriptine-TRH test was performed in 11 patients with advanced Parkinson's disease and in 10 control subjects. Seven patients were receiving treatment with Levo-DOPA, which was discontinued 12 h prior to the test. Basal prolactin levels were 5.88 ng/ml in treated and 18.22 ng/ml in untreated patients as compared to 9.68 mg/ml in controls. Bromocriptine induced a similar reduction of about 60% in prolactin levels in all groups (3.28, 11.5 and 5.95 ng/ml, respectively). After TRH, prolactin levels increased to 13.8 ng/ml in controls and 15.2 ng/ml in patients treated with levo-DOPA. Untreated patients remained with prolactin below basal levels (11.6 ng/ml). We postulate that low basal levels of prolactin in patients treated with levo-DOPA reveal a residual suppressing effect of the drug. The sharp increase after TRH is related to a significant dopaminergic hypofunction as evidenced by clinical findings. A high sensitivity of dopaminergic receptors in the anterior hypofisis is sug

Causes of Uveitis in a Tertiary Center in Chile: A Crosssectional Retrospective Review

Purpose: To describe the pattern of uveitis in a tertiary center in Santiago, Chile. Methods: We reviewed all of the case records with a presumptive diagnosis of uveitis from patients referred to the Uveitis Department of Hospital del Salvador between 2002 and 2012. Initial assessment was standardized. We tested for association among causes, gender, and age groups. Results: Anterior uveitis was the leading anatomical location of the inflammation (40.4%). A specific etiology was demonstrated in 59% of cases (28.7% infectious). Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada syndrome (VKH) was the most frequent cause of uveitis (17.2%). We found association between idiopathic intermediate uveitis, toxocariasis, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, VKH, toxoplasmosis, diabetes mellitus (DM)-associated uveitis, tuberculosis, and idiopathic anterior uveitis and age groups. VKH, DMassociated uveitis, and syphilis-associated uveitis were associated with gender. Conclusions: Our sample shows a distribution of causes of uveitis similar to those in developed countries. The prevalence of VKH is higher than expected

Food restraint and acute stress in women Restriccion alimentaria y estres agudo en mujeres.

According to restraint theory, people scoring high in this dimension of eating behavior should exhibit a conflict between biological set point and cultural norm. In order to explore the hypothesis that this tension should lead to heightened vulnerability to stress, 17 healthy women between 18 and 54 years of age, previously studied from the point of view of eating behavior, were submitted to a five-minute stressful challenge (public speaking). Visual analogue anxiety scales and plasma free fatty acids indicated that high restraint scores predict heightened reactivity to this stressor in women. Such result helps to differentiate further psychological factors related to disorders of eating

Therapeutic outcomes in patients with post-traumatic strabismus from a tertiary center in Chile

Purpose: Strabismus (heterotropia) is one of several possible complications of ocular traumatic injury. This condition is associated with a decreased quality of life. The purpose of this study is to present the functional outcomes of a series of 35 patients presenting with strabismus secondary to eye trauma. Methodology: Retrospective study. Treatments for each type of post-traumatic ocular lesion were categorized, which included conservative management by clinical observation; use of a lens with prismatic addition; intramuscular injection of botulinum toxin; or surgery. The strabismus conditions were evaluated prior to the treatment and six months after the last treatment had been received. The rate of therapeutic success, defined as ±10 PD (prism diopters) was assessed. Results: The orbital injuries that most commonly caused strabismus were found to be orbital fracture, penetrating eye injury and direct muscle trauma. All cases of direct muscle trauma received surgical treatment; 54% of orbital fractures resolved spontaneously during clinical observation, whereas 38% required surgery. Three cases of penetrating eye injury were observed and all were resolved surgically. The rate of therapeutic success was 88.57%. A single treatment was sufficient in 88.6% of all cases. Conclusions: Non-surgical therapeutic clinical observation is sufficient in a significant percentage of cases because a large number of patients tend to spontaneous recovery. Additional techniques, such as treatment with botulinum toxin, can play a useful complementary role. Surgical intervention, assessed on a case by case basis, also proved to be highly effective in the minority of cases where it was required

Psychological and physiological markers of presurgical stress in women INDICADORES PSICOLOGICOS Y FISIOLOGICOS DE ESTRES PREQUIRURGICO EN MUJERES

Psychological and physiological indicators of presurgical stress are investigated in an unselected group of women without history of mental pathology. Among the instruments employed are the content analysis of verbal behavior according to Gottschalk et al., the revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, plasma cortisol and free fatty acids. The hypothesis that high Restraint scores in the Three Factor Eating Questionnaire, previously demonstrated to be basal factors of stress which interact with situational stress was not substantiated by present data. However, the relevance of the methods employed as noninvasive procedures for the analysis of predisposing factors is emphasized in its transcultural applications

Evaluation of the accuracy of T-SPOT.TB for the diagnosis of ocular tuberculosis in a BCG-vaccinated, non-endemic population

Purpose: To determine the performance of T-SPOT.TB, an interferon gamma release assay test, in patients with ocular tuberculosis (TB) in a BCG-vaccinated, non-endemic population. Methods: We employed a nested case control design. In total, 45 subjects were enrolled (23 patients with ocular tuberculosis and 22 patients with other causes of uveitis). A blood sample was collected from each subject, and T-SPOT.TB was executed. Laboratory professionals were blinded to the disease status of each subject. Results: Five patients were excluded because of indeterminate results. The calculated sensitivity and specificity were 0.80 and 0.85, respectively. The positive likelihood ratio was 5.33 and the negative likelihood ratio was 0.23. The overall accuracy of the test was 0.83. Conclusions: T-SPOT.TB adequately diagnosed ocular TB. This technique is particularly useful in populations where BCG vaccinations are still mandatory

Clinical Features and Prognostic Factors in Presumed Ocular Tuberculosis

© 2017 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.Purpose: To characterize the clinical features in patients with presumed ocular tuberculosis (TB) and determine prognostic factors of visual outcomes and complications in this disease. Material and methods: Retrospective case series of 35 patients (29 females, 6 males) with presumed ocular TB from referral centers in Chile and Spain between 2002 and 2012. Medical records were reviewed, and data regarding clinical features, complications, best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), duration of disease, extraocular manifestations, and therapy were retrieved. Prognostic factors for low vision (BCVA 20/50 or less), legal blindness (BCVA 20/200 or less), and complications (cataract, glaucoma, and macular lesion) were evaluated. To calculate correlations, we used Spearman’s rank correlation test. To determine clinical predictors, we used the binary logistic regression test. Results: Anterior and non-granulomatous uveitis was the most common types of inflammation

Investigating the Accuracy and Completeness of an Artificial Intelligence Large Language Model About Uveitis: An Evaluation of ChatGPT

To assess the accuracy and completeness of ChatGPT-generated answers regarding uveitis description, prevention, treatment, and prognosis. Thirty-two uveitis-related questions were generated by a uveitis specialist and inputted into ChatGPT 3.5. Answers were compiled into a survey and were reviewed by five uveitis specialists using standardized Likert scales of accuracy and completeness. In total, the median accuracy score for all the uveitis questions (n = 32) was 4.00 (between “more correct than incorrect” and “nearly all correct”), and the median completeness score was 2.00 (“adequate, addresses all aspects of the question and provides the minimum amount of information required to be considered complete”). The interrater variability assessment had a total kappa value of 0.0278 for accuracy and 0.0847 for completeness. ChatGPT can provide relatively high accuracy responses for various questions related to uveitis; however, the answers it provides are incomplete, with some inaccuracies. Its utility in providing medical information requires further validation and development prior to serving as a source of uveitis information for patients.</p