Gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN) is highly chemosensitive and has a high cure rate. Since the introduction of chemotherapy, reliable measurement of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) levels, and individualised risk-based therapy into the management of GTN, almost all low-risk and more than 80 % of high-risk GTN cases are curable. However, approximately 25 % of high-risk GTN developed r...

The effects of nitroprusside (NP), glyceryl trinitrate (GTN), and the 8-bromo analog of cyclic GMP (8-Br-cGMP) on norepinephrine (NE)-stimulated phosphorylase a formation and myosin light chain (MLC) phosphorylation were examined in the rat aorta. NE produced a time-dependent increase in tension, phosphorylase a formation, and MLC phosphorylation. The formation of phosphorylase a and phosphoryl...

BACKGROUND Gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN) refers to malignant lesions that arise from abnormal proliferation of placental trophoblast. Even in its metastatic forms GTN is curable with a cure rate of 90-100 %. Currently, methotrexate with or without folic acid, andactinomycin D is recommended for low risk GTN. The aim of this study is to compare the efficacy of methotrexate and actino...

BACKGROUND Nitrates are widely used to treat coronary artery disease, but their therapeutic value is compromised by the rapid development of tolerance. Recently, the renin-angiotensin system has been suggested to play an important role in the development of nitrate tolerance. METHODS AND RESULTS Sixty-four patients with coronary spastic angina were investigated to clarify the effect of angiot...

A new technique for measuring the elastic-plastic properties of porous thin films by means of nanoindentation is proposed. The effects of porosity on indentation hardness and modulus are investigated through finite element analyses based on the Gurson model for plastic deformation of ductile porous materials. Intrinsic mechanical properties of the thin film are obtained by eliminating both subs...

BACKGROUND Medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) is a C-cell neoplasm. Surgery remains its main treatment. Promising therapies based on tyrosine kinase inhibitors demand careful patient selection. We previously observed that two non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID), indomethacin, celecoxib, and nitric oxide (NO) prevented tumor growth in a model of human MTC cell line (TT) in nude mice. MET...

Vascular changes underlying headache in migraine patients induced by Glyceryl trinitrate (GTN) were previously studied with various imaging techniques. Despite the long history of medical and experimental use of GTN, its effects on the brain vasculature are still poorly understood presumably due to low spatial resolution of the imaging modalities used so far. We took advantage of the micrometer...

Gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN) represents a group of diseases characterized by production of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). Since non-gestational tumors may occasionally secrete hCG, histopathological diagnosis is important for appropriate clinical management. However, a histopathological diagnosis is not always available. We therefore investigated the feasibility of extracting ...

Bioactive compounds extracted from leaves and twigs of Goniothalamus griffithii include pinocembrin (PCN) and goniothalamin (GTN). The objectives of this study were to investigate the cytotoxic activities of PCN and GTN and their influence on molecular signaling for cell death in several human cancer cell lines compared to normal murine fibroblast NIH3T3 cells. GTN exhibited the most potent cyt...