UNLABELLED Cardiovascular diseases are the major cause of mortality in uraemic patients treated by hemodialysis. Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is considered to be a major cardiac risk factor. AIM To investigate the presence of some potential adverse risk factors in hemodialysis patients with developed LVH echocardiography verified and determine their relative contribution to the LVH in comparison with patients with normal LV. METHOD The study included 50 patients with end-stage renal disease in the first 2 years of hemodialysis treatment, who were followed up during one year. All participants have the echocardiography performed as well as serial measurements of potential modifiable cardiovascular risk factors. RESULTS This investigation showed that LVH is present in high percentage (72%) in uraemic patients, even at the beginning of hemodialysis treatment. This LV morphological abnormality is statistically significantly related to anaemia (p<0,001), systolic (p<0,001) and diastolic hypertension (p<0,001)), elevated mean arterial pressure (p<0,001) and hyperparathyroidism (p=0,002). CONCLUSION Modification of existing risk factors in uraemic patients could contribute to prevention and treatment of LV hypertophy and thus reduce cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.

Microscopic demonstration of chlamydial inclusions within cells offered the first laboratory procedure supporting the clinical diagnosis of chlamydial infection. Our aim is to evaluate the usefulness of different endocervical staining methods in diagnosis of Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) infection within exfoliated cells of the endocervix. The cytological test for the detection of chlamydial inclusions in genital tract infection, though not as sensitive and specific as isolation in the cell culture monolayers, is still of the diagnostic value. The present study discusses the collection of clinical smears for microscopic examination, their preparation; fixation and staining of slides by a variety of staining methods that have been used to detect Chlamydia in clinical smears and biopsies. Most of these methods such as Giemsa stain, Papanicolaou, iodine, and immunofluorescence (IF) using monoclonal antibodies, are based on the combination of dyes designed to obtain optimum differentiation of the various structures. The utilization of different endocervical smear stains together with the clinical information can be used to identify women at high risk for CT infection.

This study encompassed 64 participants with symptoms of low back pain, 33 in McKenzie group and 31 in Brunkow group. Patients attended exercise program daily and they were asked to do the same exercise at home--five times a day in series of 5 to 10 repetition each time, depending of stage of disease and pain intensity. All patients were assessed for the spinal motion, before and after the treatment. All parameters for spinal movements showed improvement after exercising McKenzie program for lower back pain with a significant difference of p<0.01 for all motions. Also, in Brunkow group, all of the parameters showed statistically significant improvement at the end of treatment in relation to pre-treatment values, with significant difference of p<0.01 for all motions. Statistically comparison between McKenzie and Brunkow difference in score at the end of the treatment showed statistically significant improvement in McKenzie group, for extension, right and left side flexion, while flexion score didn't show statistically significant difference. McKenzie exercises seemed to be more effective than Brunkow exercises for improvement in spinal motion. Both, McKenzie and Brunkow exercises can be used for spinal mobility improvement in patients with lower back pain, but is preferable to use McKenzie exercises first, to decrease the pain and increase spinal mobility, and then Brunkow exercises to strengthen the paravertebral muscles.

Deiscencia de sutura em anastomose intestinal e a principal complicacao depois da cirurgia. Independentemente das melhoriasnas tecnicas cirurgicas, os vazamentos na anastomose colonica frequentemente ocorrem, resultando em alta morbidade emortalidade, principalmente quando nao e possivel o preparo intestinal. Este trabalho teve como finalidade testar a submucosade intestino delgado de suino, conservada em glicerina, como protetor intraluminal (PIL) de anastomoses colonicas em caes.Foram operadas 16 cadelas adultas, com peso medio de 13,8 kg, que foram distribuidas em tres grupos: um grupo controlecom seis animais, e dois grupos de teste, sendo um composto de seis e o outro de quatro animais. A comparacao entre osgrupos teste e controle envolveu a mensuracao do tempo cirurgico e, no pos-operatorio, avaliacao clinica, colonoscopica e dobolo fecal. Nao houve diferenca significativa entre os tempos cirurgicos. Nao houve alteracao clinica relevante em nenhum dosanimais, nem diferenca entre os exames colonoscopicos dos grupos controle e teste. Fundamentando-se nos resultados,conclui-se que o protetor intraluminal nao causa danos a anastomose e este permanece fixado a submucosa por um periodode tres dias (periodo critico da cicatrizacao colonica), podendo, entao, ser considerado uma nova, facil e barata tecnica deprotecao intraluminal.

We associate a Taylor tower supplied by the calculus of the embedding functor to the space of long knots and study its cohomology spectral sequence. The combinatorics of the spectral sequence along the line of total degree zero leads to chord diagrams with relations as in finite type knot theory. We show that the spectral sequence collapses along this line and that the Taylor tower represents a universal finite type knot invariant.

Abstract We describe Taylor towers for spaces of knots arising from Goodwillie–Weiss calculus of the embedding functor and extend the configuration space integrals of Bott and Taubes from spaces of knots to the stages of the towers. We show that certain combinations of integrals, indexed by trivalent diagrams, yield cohomology classes of the stages of the tower, just as they do for ordinary knots.