No abstract available.
Electrocardiography* ; Heart Septal Defects, Atrial* ; Hemodynamics*

No abstract available.
Dermatomyositis*

No abstract available.
Animals ; Catalase* ; Glutathione* ; Lung* ; Rats*

No abstract available.
Budesonide* ; Humans

Some variables can influence the efficiency of leukocyte removal filter for red cell concentrates. We performed this study to evaluate whether the filtration efficiency for platelet concentrates(PCs) can be influenced by bedside filter(PXL8K, Pall Corporation, USA) used, platelet storage time and transient stopping of platelet agitation, and to measure the amount of cytokines released from donor leukocytes in PCs during the storage time. In addition, we examined the effect of leukocyte reduction by filtration before the storage of PCs on the subsequent generation of cytokines. Any of the above mentioned variables did not make significant differences. From day 1 to day 5, there were significant increases in IL-1 beta (<1 vs. 8.6 pg/mL, p<0.05), IL-8 (<10 vs. 455.3 pg/mL, p<0.05) and TNF-alpha (<4 vs. 16.6 pg/mL, p<0.05) in unflltered PCs, whereas no increased revels of cytokines were found in the cases of prestorage filtration.
Blood Platelets* ; Cytokines ; Dihydroergotamine ; Filtration* ; Humans ; Interleukin-1beta ; Interleukin-8 ; Leukocytes* ; Tissue Donors ; Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha

No abstract available.

No abstract available.
Eosinophils* ; Histamine*

To investigate the influence of first six-month mean for serum biochemical markers, albumin, cholesterol, triglyceride, inorganic phosphate, BUN, creatinine, on survival in hemodialysis, we retrospectively analyzed the 57 patients who were monitored from the start of HD for more than 6 months between January 1988 and December 1995. Exclusion criteria were as follows: transfer to CAPD, transplantation or another dialysis center, HD for less than 6 months, non-compliant, death due to malignant disease, accident and self-withdrawal. The patients were divided into two groups according to the demographic characteristics and the median value of first six-month mean for serum biochemical markers. The mean age was 46.7+/-11.7 year, male-to female ratio was 1.6:1, diabetics were 12 (21.1%), and mean follow-up duration was 39.0+/-26.4 months. Among them 30 patients (52.6%) were died. Diabetic patients had significantly lower 1 year (63.6 vs. 88.8%, p<0.05) and 3 year survival rate (19.1 vs. 62.2%, p<0.05) than non-diabetic patients. Low serum albumin(<3.5g/dl), low serum cholesterol(<130mg/dl) and low serum P (<5.0mg/dl) groups were significantly lower 1 and 3 year survival rate than high serum albumin (63.6 vs. 97.0%; 25.5 vs. 74.6%, p<0.05), cholesterol (71.4 vs. 88.0%; 38.1 vs. 60.8%, p<0.05) and p (71.9 vs. 96.3% ; 47.1 vs. 62.9%, p<0.05) groups, respectively. There were no differences in survival rate according to sex, BUN, TG, and creatinine. By Cox's proportional hazard model, low serum albumin(odds ratio 1.98), cholesterol(odds ratio 1.60), and P(odds ratio 2.09) group were independent risk factors for early death. Low serum albumin level at the start of HD maintained during the follow-up period. Cholesterol and P showed similar results. In conclusion, basal serum biochemical markers associated with visceral protein depletion such as low serum albumin, cholesterol and P seem to be early predictors of mortality in hemodialysis patients.
Biomarkers* ; Cholesterol ; Creatinine ; Dialysis ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Mortality ; Peritoneal Dialysis, Continuous Ambulatory ; Proportional Hazards Models ; Renal Dialysis* ; Retrospective Studies ; Risk Factors ; Serum Albumin ; Survival Rate ; Triglycerides

Imatinib mesylate is a selective Bcr/Abl kinase inhibitor and an effective anticancer agent for Bcr/Abl-positive chronic myelogenous leukemia. Most patients in chronic phase maintain durable responses; however, many in blast crisis fail to respond, or relapse quickly. Mutations within the BCR/ABL kinase domain are the most commonly identified mechanism associated with relapse. To overcome the imatinib resistance in CML, many investigators have tried to clarify molecular mechanism for imatinib resistance in cells of patients who failed to respond to imatinib. Our aim was to invesitigate underlying mechanism for imatinib resistance in SR-1 cells, which were derived from a CML patient in blast crisis. We detected the new mutation of BCR/ABL, resulting in premature termination and loss of BCR/ABL fusion protein expression, which might be possible mechanism for the resistance to imatinib in SR-1 cells.
Amino Acid Sequence ; Base Sequence ; Cell Line, Tumor ; Drug Resistance, Neoplasm/*genetics ; Fusion Proteins, bcr-abl/chemistry/*genetics ; Humans ; Leukemia, Myeloid/*genetics ; Molecular Sequence Data ; Mutagenesis, Insertional/*genetics ; Nucleotides/genetics ; Piperazines/*pharmacology ; Point Mutation/*genetics ; Pyrimidines/*pharmacology ; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Recent studies have reported that cognitive inflexibility associated with impairments in a frontal-striatal circuit and parietal region is a core cognitive deficit of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, few studies have examined progressive changes in these regions following clinical improvement in obsessive-compulsive symptoms. To determine if treatment changes the aberrant activation pattern associated with task switching in OCD, we examined the activation patterns in brain areas after treatment. The study was conducted on 10 unmedicated OCD patients and 20 matched controls using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging. Treatment improved the clinical symptoms measured by the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale and behavioral flexibility indicated by the switching cost. At baseline, OCD showed significantly less activation in the dorsal and ventral frontal-striatal circuit and parietal regions under the task-switch minus task-repeat condition compared with controls. After treatment, the neural responses in the ventral frontal-striatal circuit in OCD were partially normalized, whereas the activation deficit in dorsal frontoparietal regions that mediate shifting attention or behavioral flexibility persisted. It is suggested that altered brain activation in ventral frontal-striatal regions in OCD patients is associated with their cognitive flexibility and changes in these regions may underlie the pathophysiology of OCD.
Adult ; Basal Ganglia/*metabolism ; Behavioral Symptoms/drug therapy ; Female ; Frontal Lobe/*drug effects/physiopathology ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Male ; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder/*drug therapy/physiopathology ; Parietal Lobe/*drug effects/physiopathology