Progress in the treatment of human in-stent restenosis (ISR) is hampered by an imprecise understanding of the nature of the cells that occlude vascular stents. Recent studies suggest that circulating vascular progenitor cells may mediate vascular repair and lesion formation. Moreover, functional endothelial progenitor cells appear to play a protective role in attenuating vascular lesion formati...

OBJECTIVE Our aim was to assess the value of coronary artery calcium score (CACS) in the early diagnosis of coronary artery disease in Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) stage II chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients and to identify high-risk patients. METHODS Forty-two patients with GOLD stage II COPD and 31 healthy control subjects were enrolled in...

STUDY QUESTION Are levels of circulating angiogenic cells (CACs) affected by the presence of endometriosis? SUMMARY ANSWER Levels of CACs are equivalent in women with and without endometriosis. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY Murine models have suggested a role for CACs in the development of endometriosis, but their levels in humans have not yet been studied. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION Eighty-sev...

UNLABELLED The most frequent cause of ischaemic heart disease is coronary arteriosclerosis. This study was aimed at assessing gene expression of TNFA and its two receptors (TNFR1, TNFR2), as well as determining coronary artery calcium score (CACS) in the context of occurrence of classical risk factors in patients with subclinical ather...

(1) Background: Endothelial dysfunction predicts cardiovascular events. Circulating angiogenic cells (CACs) maintain and repair the endothelium regulating its function. Tea flavonoids reduce cardiovascular risk. We investigated the effects of black tea on the number of CACs and on flow-mediated dilation (FMD) before and after an oral fat in hypertensives; (2) Methods: In a randomized, double-bl...

OBJECTIVE This study examines the impact of Children's Advocacy Centers (CAC) and other factors, such as the child's age, alleged penetration, and injury on the use of forensic medical examinations as part of the response to reported child sexual abuse. METHODS This analysis is part of a quasi-experimental study, the Multi-Site Evaluation of Children's Advocacy Centers, which evaluated four C...

BACKGROUND Insulin resistance is of utmost importance as an underlying mechanism for increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). We assessed the association between Homeostatic Model Assessment (HOMA-IR) and two surrogate subclinical atherosclerosis markers (SCA) among individuals with and without type 2 diabetes (DM), those who did not have any clinical presentation of the CVD. METHODS I...

Background—Vasculogenic cell-based therapy combined with tissue engineering is a promising revascularization approach destined at patients with advanced coronary artery disease, many of whom exhibit myocardial hibernation. However, so far no experimental data have been available in this context; we therefore examined the biopolymer-supported delivery of circulating angiogenic cells (CACs) using...

OBJECTIVE To describe trends of felony sexual abuse prosecutions between 1992 and 2002 for two districts of a large urban city that differed primarily in their use of children's advocacy centers (CACs) for sexual abuse evaluations in children. METHODS Aggregate data for two districts of a large urban city were provided from 1992 to 2002 from the district attorney's office, child protective se...

UNLABELLED Current treatment for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection has improved survival and allowed infected patients to develop atherosclerotic coronary artery disease (CAD). Specific strategies to reduce cardiovascular risk in the infected population have not been developed. It is necessary to know the magnitude of cardiovascular risk in this population. OBJECTIVES This study ai...