Therapy of Canine Hyperlipidemia with Bezafibrate.

BackgroundBezafibrate (BZF) is effective in the treatment of hypertriglyceridemia in human patients, but there are no data on its use in dogs.ObjectiveTo assess the safety of BZF in hyperlipidemic dogs and its efficacy in decreasing serum triglyceride (TG) and cholesterol (CHO) concentrations.AnimalsForty-six dogs, 26 females and 20 males, mean (±SD) age of 9 (±3) years, with TG ≥150 mg/dL (33 dogs also were hypercholesterolemic [>300 mg/dL]).MethodsProspective, uncontrolled clinical trial. Dogs were treated with bezafibrate once daily, using 200 mg tablets at a dosage of 4-10 mg/kg (depending on body weight). Serum TG and CHO concentrations and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and creatine kinase (CK) activity before and after 30 days of treatment were compared.ResultsSixteen dogs (34.8%) had primary hyperlipidemia, and 30 dogs (65.2%) had secondary hyperlipidemia (including spontaneous hyperadrenocorticism [41.3%, n = 19/46], chronic treatment with glucocorticoids [10.8%, n = 5/46], and hypothyroidism [15.2%, n = 7/46]). After 30 days, serum TG concentration normalized (<150 mg/dL) in 42 dogs (91.3%) and CHO concentration normalized (<270 mg/dL) in 22 of 33 dogs (66.7%). There was no difference in baseline TG concentration between the primary and secondary hyperlipidemia subgroups, but the decrease in TG concentration after treatment was greater in the primary hyperlipidemia subgroup. No adverse effects were observed, but ALT activity decreased significantly after 30 days of treatment.Conclusions and clinical importanceOver 30 days, BZF was safe and effective in treatment of primary and secondary hyperlipidemia in dogs

Plasma level of LDL-cholesterol at diagnosis is a predictor factor of breast tumor progression

BACKGROUND: Among women, breast cancer (BC) is the leading cancer and the most common cause of cancer-related death between 30 and 69 years. Although lifestyle and diet are considered to have a role in global BC incidence pattern, the specific influence of dyslipidemia in BC onset and progression is not yet completely understood. METHODS: Fasting lipid profile (total cholesterol, LDL-C, HDL-C, and triglycerides) was prospectively assessed in 244 women with BC who were enrolled according to pre-set inclusion criteria: diagnosis of non-hereditary invasive ductal carcinoma; selection for surgery as first treatment, and no history of treatment with lipid-lowering or anti-diabetic drugs in the previous year. Pathological and clinical follow-up data were recorded for further inclusion in the statistical analysis. RESULTS: Univariate associations show that BC patients with higher levels of LDL-C at diagnosis have tumors that are larger, with higher differentiation grade, higher proliferative rate (assessed by Ki67 immunostaining), are more frequently Her2-neu positive and are diagnosed in more advanced stages. Cox regression model for disease-free survival (DFS), adjusted to tumor T and N stages of TNM classification, and immunohistochemical subtypes, revealed that high LDL-C at diagnosis is associated with poor DFS. At 25 months of follow up, DFS is 12% higher in BC patients within the third LDL-C tertile compared to those in the first tertile. CONCLUSIONS: This is a prospective study where LDL-C levels, at diagnosis, emerge as a prognostic factor; and this parameter can be useful in the identification and follow-up of high-risk groups. Our results further support a possible role for systemic cholesterol in BC progression and show that cholesterol metabolism may be an important therapeutic target in BC patients

Intramural Vesical Leiomyoma in a Patient with a Pelvic Fibrous Tumour - Case Report

Introdução: O leiomioma vesical é um tumor benigno raro que representa,aproximadamente, 0,5% do total de neoplasias da bexiga. É frequentemente um achado imagiológico, sendo a sua localização e dimensões determinantes no desenvolvimento de sintomatologia e no tipo de procedimento a efectuar. Caso Clínico: Reporta-se o caso de um doente com queixas urinárias de disúria, polaquiúria e esforço miccional, inicialmente interpretadas como HBP. A investigação diagnóstica culminou com a enucleação de uma volumosa massa intramural da bexiga, com diagnóstico histológico de leiomioma, num doente com antecedentes de doença de Madelung e excisão prévia de um tumor fibroso paravesical. Discussão: O leiomioma vesical, embora apresentando características imagiológicas típicas, deve ser sempre biopsado para confirmação histológica da sua etiologia. O tumor fibroso pélvico apresenta sempre indicação cirúrgica pois, numa minoria de casos, pode apresentar comportamento agressivo com infiltração dos órgãos adjacentes

Interplay of quantum and classical fluctuations near quantum critical points

For a system near a quantum critical point (QCP), above its lower critical dimension $d_L$, there is in general a critical line of second order phase transitions that separates the broken symmetry phase at finite temperatures from the disordered phase. The phase transitions along this line are governed by thermal critical exponents that are different from those associated with the quantum critical point. We point out that, if the effective dimension of the QCP, $d_{eff}=d+z$ ($d$ is the Euclidean dimension of the system and $z$ the dynamic quantum critical exponent) is above its upper critical dimension $d_C$, there is an intermingle of classical (thermal) and quantum critical fluctuations near the QCP. This is due to the breakdown of the generalized scaling relation $\psi=\nu z$ between the shift exponent $\psi$ of the critical line and the crossover exponent $\nu z$, for $d+z>d_C$ by a \textit{dangerous irrelevant interaction}. This phenomenon has clear experimental consequences, like the suppression of the amplitude of classical critical fluctuations near the line of finite temperature phase transitions as the critical temperature is reduced approaching the QCP.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, to be published in Brazilian Journal of Physic

Physical Activity Characteristics across GOLD Quadrants Depend on the Questionnaire Used

BACKGROUND:The GOLD multidimensional classification of COPD severity combines the exacerbation risk with the symptom experience, for which 3 different questionnaires are permitted. This study investigated differences in physical activity (PA) in the different GOLD quadrants and patient's distribution in relation to the questionnaire used. METHODS:136 COPD patients (58±21% FEV1 predicted, 34F/102M) completed COPD assessment test (CAT), clinical COPD questionnaire (CCQ) and modified Medical Research Council (mMRC) questionnaire. Exacerbation history, spirometry and 6MWD were collected. PA was objectively measured for 2 periods of 1 week, 6 months apart, in 5 European centres; to minimise seasonal and clinical variation the average of these two periods was used for analysis. RESULTS:GOLD quadrants C+D had reduced PA compared with A+B (3824 [2976] vs. 5508 [4671] steps.d-1, p<0.0001). The choice of questionnaire yielded different patient distributions (agreement mMRC-CAT κ = 0.57; CCQ-mMRC κ = 0.71; CCQ-CAT κ = 0.72) with different clinical characteristics. PA was notably lower in patients with an mMRC score ≥2 (3430 [2537] vs. 5443 [3776] steps.d-1, p <0.001) in both the low and high risk quadrants. CONCLUSIONS:Using different questionnaires changes the patient distribution and results in different clinical characteristics. Therefore, standardization of the questionnaire used for classification is critical to allow comparison of different studies using this as an entry criterion. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION:ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01388218

A Real-Time intelligent system for tracking patient condition

Hospitals have multiple data sources, such as embedded systems, monitors and sensors. The number of data available is increasing and the information are used not only to care the patient but also to assist the decision processes. The introduction of intelligent environments in health care institutions has been adopted due their ability to provide useful information for health professionals, either in helping to identify prognosis or also to understand patient condition. Behind of this concept arises this Intelligent System to track patient condition (e.g. critic events) in health care. This system has the great advantage of being adaptable to the environment and user needs. The system is focused in identifying critic events from data streaming (e.g. vital signs and ventilation) which is particularly valuable for understanding the patient’s condition. This work aims to demonstrate the process of creating an intelligent system capable of operating in a real environment using streaming data provided by ventilators and vital signs monitors. Its development is important to the physician because becomes possible crossing multiple variables in real-time by analyzing if a value is critic or not and if their variation has or not clinical importance

Non-L\'evy mobility patterns of Mexican Me'Phaa peasants searching for fuelwood

We measured mobility patterns that describe walking trajectories of individual Me'Phaa peasants searching and collecting fuelwood in the forests of "La Monta\~na de Guerrero" in Mexico. These one-day excursions typically follow a mixed pattern of nearly-constant steps when individuals displace from their homes towards potential collecting sites and a mixed pattern of steps of different lengths when actually searching for fallen wood in the forest. Displacements in the searching phase seem not to be compatible with L\'evy flights described by power-laws with optimal scaling exponents. These findings however can be interpreted in the light of deterministic searching on heavily degraded landscapes where the interaction of the individuals with their scarce environment produces alternative searching strategies than the expected L\'evy flights. These results have important implications for future management and restoration of degraded forests and the improvement of the ecological services they may provide to their inhabitants.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures. First version submitted to Human Ecology. The final publication will be available at http://www.springerlink.co

IRIS: A new tool for suicide risk assessment

Na introdução os autores procedem a uma revisão histórica e conceptual dos instrumentos psicométricos que têm como objectivo a avaliação do risco de suicídio em indivíduos que apenas verbalizam ideação suicida. Nas secções seguintes é apresentado todo o processo de desenvolvimento do IRIS (Índice de Risco de Suicídio) - um novo índice com o mesmo objectivo de avaliação mas construído utilizando metodologias que proporcionam avanços qualitativos em relação aos índices existentes, bem como uma melhor adequação a contingências e características da realidade portuguesa. The introduction contains a historical and conceptual review of psychometric tools that aim at assessing the risk of suicide in individuals presenting suicidal ideation. In the following sections the whole process of development of IRIS (“Índice de Risco de Suicídio” – Suicide Risk Index) is presented - a new tool with the same objective but built using methods that provide qualitative advances over existing indexes, while better accounting for the contingencies and characteristics of the Portuguese reality