Search results for "Measure"
showing 10 items of 4687 documents
Replacement therapy for alpha-1-protease inhibitor deficiency in PiZ subjects with chronic obstructive lung disease
1988
In a six-month multicenter feasibility and safety study, 20 patients, who all had a congenital deficiency of alpha-1-protease inhibitor (A1PI) of the PiZ phenotype accompanied by a chronic obstructive lung disease, were treated with human-plasma-derived A1PI. A weekly dose of 60 mg/kg, administered intravenously, was shown to be sufficient to maintain patient serum levels above the threshold limit of 35 percent, the serum level of healthy persons of the MZ phenotype. This is supposed to be the minimal effective level for protection against the elastolytic attack of the lung and, therefore, satisfies one of the most important criteria of feasibility of long-term replacement therapy. The glob…
Improvement in altitude performance test after further acclimatization in pre-acclimatized soldiers.
2013
The Altitude Performance Test is a measure designed to assess an individual's degree of acclimatization to reduce the risk of acute mountain sickness during high-altitude activities. The aim of this study was to investigate the hypothesis that test results will improve in pre-acclimatized soldiers after several days of further acclimatization. The Altitude Performance Test consists of an uphill run at high altitude. The event is timed and performed with continuous oxygen saturation (SpO2) monitoring. The individual's time and lowest SpO2 measurement are recorded. This test was performed on the first day of arriving at 11,060 ft, and after 9 days at the same location. The 37 male soldiers we…
Prevalence and management of pain in Italian patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer
2004
Pain is a highly distressing symptom for patients with advanced cancer. WHO analgesic ladder is widely accepted as a guideline for its treatment. Our aim was to describe pain prevalence among patients diagnosed with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), impact of pain on quality of life (QoL) and adequacy of pain management. Data of 1021 Italian patients enrolled in three randomised trials of chemotherapy for NSCLC were pooled. QoL was assessed by EORTC QLQ-C30 and LC-13. Analgesic consumption during the 3 weeks following QoL assessment was recorded. Adequacy of pain management was evaluated by the Pain Management Index (PMI). Some pain was reported by 74% of patients (42% mild, 24% …
Addition of a second opioid may improve opioid response in cancer pain: preliminary data
2004
Recent experimental data suggest a possible use of an opioid combination to improve analgesia. In cancer patients, a rapid opioid escalation due to either worsening of the pain condition or the development of tolerance is a critical phase, as this condition is associated with a negative prognosis. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of adding a second opioid at low doses in patients with a poor analgesic benefit after dose escalation. Fourteen patients receiving strong opioids who had increased their dosage more than 100% in the last week unsuccessfully were randomly chosen to add a second opioid to the first using an initial equivalent dosage of 20% of the previous therapy. The…
Psychometric Properties of the Diener Satisfaction With Life Scale With Five Response Options Applied to the Colombian Population
2022
Introduction: The Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), developed by Diener, Emmons, Larsen, and Griffin in 1985, comprises five items with seven response options in terms of agreement–disagreement. Recently, there has been a suggestion to reduce the response options of the SWLS to optimize its applicability in different cultural contexts.Objective: The study aims to assess the psychometric properties of the SWLS with five response options in the Colombian population. Specifically, we studied the dimensionality, invariance by gender and age (among a group of adolescents and emerging adults under 25 years and a group of adults of intermediate age and established adulthood under 59 years), con…
A Prospective Randomized Study of Corticosteroids as Adjuvant Drugs to Opioids in Advanced Cancer Patients
2007
This randomized controlled study evaluated the role of corticosteroids as adjuvants to opioid therapy in 76 advanced cancer patients with pain who requiring strong opioids. Patients were divided in 2 groups. Group O received conventional opioid treatment. Group OS received dexamethasone (8 mg orally) along with conventional treatment. Pain and symptom intensity, sense of well-being, and opioid escalation index and distress score were recorded at weekly intervals until death. No differences in pain intensity, opioid consumption, and opioid escalation index were found in 66 patients who survived 33 to 37 days. Corticosteroids did not provide significant additional analgesia to opioids, but p…
Thyroid Stimulating Antibodies Are Highly Prevalent in Hashimoto's Thyroiditis and Associated Orbitopathy
2016
Thyroid-associated orbitopathy (TAO) rarely occurs in patients with Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT).There is evidence that TSH receptor stimulating antibodies (TSAb) play a role in the pathogenesis of TAO. In this report, the prevalence of TSAb in HT patients with and without TAO was studied.This is a longitudinal observational study.The study took place in an academic joint thyroid-eye clinic.A total of 1055 subjects were included.TSAb was measured with a Food and Drug Administration-cleared bioassay that uses Chinese hamster ovary cells expressing a chimeric TSH receptor and a cAMP response element-dependent luciferase. Results of TSAb activity were reported as percentage of specimen-to-refe…
Intranasal fentanyl versus fentanyl pectin nasal spray for the management of breakthrough cancer pain in doses proportional to basal opioid regimen.
2014
Abstract The aim of this randomized, crossover, comparison study was to assess the analgesic and adverse effects of 2 nasal preparations, intranasal fentanyl (INFS) and fentanyl pectin nasal spray (FPNS), for breakthrough pain, given in doses proportional to opioid basal regimen. Each patient randomly received INFS or FPNS in doses proportional to opioid dosages used for background analgesia for 2 pairs of episodes. For each episode of breakthrough pain, pain intensity and adverse effects intensity were recorded just before starting the INFS or FPNS (T0) and 5 minutes (T5), 10 minutes (T10), and 20 minutes (T20) after the administration of the nasal drugs. Sixty-nine patients were studied. …
Objective analysis of contact lens fit.
2015
Purpose: To assess the validity and repeatability of objective compared to subjective contact lens fit analysis. Methods: Thirty-five subjects (aged 22.0. ±. 3.0 years) wore two different soft contact lens designs. Four lens fit variables: centration, horizontal lag, post-blink movement in up-gaze and push-up recovery speed were assessed subjectively (four observers) and objectively from slit-lamp biomicroscopy captured images and video. The analysis was repeated a week later. Results: The average of the four experienced observers was compared to objective measures, but centration, movement on blink, lag and push-up recovery speed all varied significantly between them (p 0.05). The 95% conf…
Evidence for cortical visual substitution of chronic bilateral vestibular failure (an fMRI study).
2007
Bilateral vestibular failure (BVF) is a rare disorder of the labyrinth or the eighth cranial nerve which has various aetiologies. BVF patients suffer from unsteadiness of gait combined with blurred vision due to oscillopsia. Functional MRI (fMRI) in healthy subjects has shown that stimulation of the visual system induces an activation of the visual cortex and ocular motor areas bilaterally as well as simultaneous deactivations of multisensory vestibular cortex areas. Our question was whether the chronic absence of bilateral vestibular input (BVF) causes a plastic cortical reorganization of the above-described visual-vestibular interaction. We used fMRI to measure the differential effects of…