Little is known about the effects of sequential combination therapy on exercise capacity in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). We monitored exercise capacity by cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPX) and observed the benefit of using a peak oxygen uptake (VO2) cut-off of 15 mL/min/kg to guide combination therapy. The patients underwent CPX at baseline and after 3, 6, and 12 months. In patie...

AIM To identify hepatitis B virus polymerase gene mutations during antiviral therapy using lamivudine-adefovir sequential monotherapy followed by lamivudine-adefovir combination therapy. METHODS The patient cohort included four adult chronic hepatitis B patients who had undergone sequential monotherapy, first with lamivudine (LMV) and then, after developing viral breakthrough, with adefovir (...

T is no doubt that continuous treatment of HIV-infected persons with combinations of three or more antiretroviral drugs reduces morbidity and mortality from HIV-1 infection (1, 2). Nevertheless, growing concern about the long-term toxicity of antiretroviral drugs, the prevalence of HIV-1 drug resistance in patients receiving therapy,† and the substantial cost of continuous treatment has focused...

BACKGROUND It has been known for more than 20 years that estrogen replacement therapy substantially increases a woman's risk of developing endometrial cancer. To reduce this increased risk, progestins have been added to estrogen replacement therapy for between 5 and 15 days (usually 7 or 10 days) per "month" in a sequential fashion (sequential estrogen-progestin replacement therapy) or with eac...