Postoperative pain and hospital stay were significantly increased following sternotomy; patient’s subjective cosmetic satisfaction was significantly higher after video-assisted and conventional cervicotornic approaches.
Conclusions Conventional cervicotomic parathyroidectomy may achieve satisfactory results, especially for upper mediastinal glands. Sternotomic approaches are effective, but should be limited
because of invasiveness and increased morbidity. In case of deep and lower hyperfunctioning mediastinal parathyroids, video-assisted approaches represent a less invasive, effective, and safe alternative and might be the technique of choice.”
“BACKGROUND: Elevated levels of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) correlate with an increased selleck inhibitor risk for cardiovascular events. Combination therapy with a statin and a fibrate may be more effective than statin monotherapy
for reducing hsCRP, especially in patients with mixed dyslipidemia.
OBJECTIVE: To characterize the treatment effects of rosuvastatin and fenofibric acid combination therapy compared with individual monotherapies in mixed dyslipidemic patients with baseline hsCRP >= 2 mg/L versus <2 mg/L and to determine the effects of long-term treatment with rosuvastatin and fenofibric acid combination therapy on hsCRP and other lipids for patients with AZD8186 ic50 hsCRP >= 2 mg/L after treatment with rosuvastatin monotherapy.
METHODS: Data for the post hoc analysis were derived from two 12-week controlled studies and a 52-week extension AZD6738 cell line study. Patients were treated with fenofibric acid 135 mg; rosuvastatin 5, 10, 20, or 40 mg; or rosuvastatin 5, 10, or 20 mg and fenofibric acid 135 mg in the controlled studies; and with rosuvastatin 20 mg and fenofibric acid 135 mg in the extension study.
RESULTS: In this analysis, 65% (1416/2182) of patients
had pretreatment baseline hsCRP >= 2 mg/L. Among all treatment groups, larger decreases in hsCRP were observed in patients with greater baseline hsCRP; however, improvements in other lipids/apolipoprotein were comparable between the baseline hsCRP categories. Among patients with high hsCRP (>= 2 mg/L) remaining after 12 weeks of rosuvastatin 10, 20, or 40 mg monotherapy, hsCRP was reduced by similar to 36% after switching to rosuvastatin 20 mg and fenofibric acid 135 mg for up to 52 weeks, and similar to 36% of patients shifted from hsCRP >= 2 mg/L to <2 mg/L.
CONCLUSIONS: Combination therapy with rosuvastatin and fenofibric acid may be effective for improving the inflammatory biomarker, hsCRP as well as other lipid abnormalities in patients with mixed dyslipidemia and high hsCRP. (C) 2011 National Lipid Association. All rights reserved.”
“Micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) is an important tool in biomedical research and preclinical applications that can provide visual inspection of and quantitative information about imaged small animals and biological samples such as vasculature specimens.