Julius Blum (Austria)

Spikeoil (Tavipec®) is a phytomedicine obtained by steam distillation of the flowering tops of Lavandula latifolia. The trial was designed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of Tavipec® in patients suffering from acute bronchitis.

National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) item profiles that were recently proposed may prove useful both clinically and for research studies. We aimed to validate the NIHSS item profiles in an acute cohort. We conducted a retrospective analysis on pooled data from randomized clinical trials. We applied the latent class analysis probabilities of profile membership developed from the derivation study to obtain symptom grouping, a-NIHSS item profiles. We implemented an independent latent class analysis to derive secondary symptom grouping, b-NIHSS item profiles. Validation was performed by assessing the associations with outcomes and evaluating both sets of NIHSS item profiles' discrimination and calibration to the data. The outcomes evaluated included modified Rankin Scale (mRS; using the full distribution and dichotomized, mRS, 0-1) at day 90 and mortality by 90 days. We identified 10 271 patients. Ordinal analysis of mRS confirmed increased odds of better outcome across the profiles in a stepwise manner, adjusted for age and thrombolysis treatment, for each set of NIHSS item profiles. Similar patterns were observed for mRS 0 to 1, and inverse patterns were seen for mortality. The c-statistics of a-NIHSS and b-NIHSS item profiles for mRS 0 to 1 were similar at 0.71 (95% confidence interval, 0.70-0.72) and for mortality, 0.74 (0.73-0.75) and 0.75 (0.73-0.76), respectively. Calibration was good. These NIHSS item profiles identified using latent class analysis offer a reliable approach to capture the true response patterns that are associated with functional and outcome and mortality post stroke. This approach has the potential to enhance the clinical value of the overall NIHSS score.

To evaluate the long-term outcome of a 12-week outpatient cardiac rehabilitation (CR) program. In a prospective single-center interventional cohort study, 201 consecutive patients (133 patients after acute coronary syndrome, 32 patients after heart surgery, and 36 patients with heart failure) attending a 12-week comprehensive outpatient CR program were evaluated for exercise capacity, cardiovascular risk factors (CvRFs), and quality of life at entry, end, and 1.4 years after completion of the program (followup). Physical exercise capacity improved significantly from program entry to program end and remained at this level at followup (P ≤ .006). CvRFs at followup were significantly reduced with regard to smoking prevalence and blood lipids (P < .001). At program end and followup, MacNew heart disease-specific emotional, physical, and social quality of life were improved significantly compared with those at program entry (P < .001). Use of cardioprotective medication remained equally high over the entire study period. However, significantly fewer patients reached blood pressure (<140/90 mm Hg, P = .034) and body mass index (<30 kg/m, P = .017) goals at followup than at program end. The 12-week comprehensive outpatient CR program was successful at reducing important CvRFs long-term.

Females are naturally protected against ischemia/reperfusion (I/R)-induced acute kidney injury (AKI) in various clinical and experimental settings. However, the underlying mechanisms are unknown. We hypothesized that female protection may be conferred by enhanced production of cytochrome P450 (CYP)-dependent epoxyeicosatrienoic acids (EETs) that promote vasodilation as well as antiinflammatory and antiapoptotic pathways in the kidney. To test this hypothesis, we first analyzed the renal CYP-eicosanoid profile by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry in male and female Lewis rats. Ischemia was induced through 45 min of left renal vessel clamping after right nephrectomy (n=6-8 per group). In non-ischemic controls, male and female kidneys stored almost identical amounts of EETs as well as 20-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid (20-HETE), both predominantly esterified into phospholipids, under basal non-ischemic conditions. 45 min of ischemia induced a massive release of EETs from membrane stores in females but not males. The free renal EET-levels reached 70.2±20.1 in females compared to only 4.6±1.3 ng/g in males. After ischemia, the ratio of free EETs to free 20-HETE was about 1:1 in females and 1:3 in males. Next, we proved the functional importance of EETs in renal protection by pretreating males with a synthetic EET-agonist (12-HUDE) and females with a selective EET-antagonist (14,15-EEZE-mSI). As analyzed two days after reperfusion, the EET-agonist protected males against loss of creatinine clearance (1.03±0.18 vs. 0.26±0.02 ml/min, p&lt;0.01 vs. vehicle, compared to 1.28±0.06 ml/min in sham control). Females were rendered susceptible to I/R-injury by the EET-antagonist (creatinine clearance: 0.25±0.05 vs. 0.67±0.04; p&lt;0.01 vs. vehicle, compared to 0.81±0.04 ml/min in sham control). Changes in inflammatory cell infiltration and tubular apoptosis paralleled these effects on renal function. Our results indicate that female rats are protected against renal I/R-injury by enhanced ischemia-induced EET-release and demonstrate that renal protection can be transferred to males using synthetic EET-agonists.

In an earlier phase II study, irradiation together with razoxane was shown to improve local control in recurrent rectal cancer. Therefore, the Austrian Society of Radiooncology (OGRO) initiated a randomized controlled trial in 1992 to compare this combined treatment versus radiation therapy alone. Between 1992 and 1999, 36 patients with localized recurrences of rectal cancer were randomized to receive radiotherapy without (group A) or with razoxane (group B). The prognostic variables of the two groups were similar except for a longer median latency period from initial surgery to local recurrence in group A. High-energy photons with daily fractions between 170 and 200 cGy were used. The median total radiation dose was 60 Gy in each group. The patients in group B received a median razoxane dose of 9.6 g (range, 5–12 g). Main outcome measures were local control, overall survival, and toxicity. The combined treatment with razoxane increased the local control rate compared to radiotherapy alone (39% vs. 8%; p = 0.05). The median survival time was not different between the groups (20 months each). No patient in arm A but four of 18 patients in arm B survived 5 years. Acute toxic effects were of moderate degree in both groups. There were no substantial differences as to late side effects. Radiotherapy together with razoxane is superior to radiation treatment alone in recurrent rectal cancer as far as local control is concerned. In some patients, long-term survival was achieved with razoxane and radiotherapy.

Abstract To describe the degree of chaos of a strange attractor created by a nonlinear map, GRASSBERGER [1] revived Renyi Dimension Dq which is a common generalization of both metric capacity D0 and information dimension D1. But often, the numerical determination of Dq is complicated by an oscillating effect first investigated by BADII and PUOLITI [5] for a dimension similar to D0. This effect is studied in the present paper. We consider the conditions for the appearance of oscillations and the dependence on q, and we give some numerical examples.

A chromogenic substrate kit for the determination of factor VIII activity (COATEST Factor VIII) has been evaluated in five different laboratories, one of them using a semi-automated procedure. This chromogenic method was compared to one-stage clotting assays for factor VIII determination in plasmas from healthy subjects, carriers of hemophilia A, severe, mild and moderate hemophilia A as well as von Willebrand's patients. In all these cases, a high correlation between these two methods was obtained (r = 0.96-0.99, n = 385) with a good agreement of the assigned potencies at all levels of factor VIII. A good correlation (r = 0.94) was also obtained for the levels of factor VIII after infusion of concentrates in six severe hemophiliacs or after administration of DDAVP to von Willebrand's patients. The chromogenic method is insensitive to preactivation of factor VIII by thrombin, thus yielding valid potency assignments also in these situations. The precision was higher with the chromogenic method than with the one-stage clotting assays (C.V. = 2-5% vs 4-15%). Altogether, the new chromogenic substrate method has proven itself suitable for determination of factor VIII in plasma and concentrates.