Deficits in auditory processing have been posited as one of the underlying neurodevelopmental consequences of maternal smoking during pregnancy that leads to later language and reading deficits. Fast auditory brainstem responses were used to assess differences in the sensory processing of auditory stimuli among infants with varying degrees of prenatal cigarette exposure. Maternal report of cons...

results from a total of 1700 participants, 41.6% were males and 58.4% were females. the mean age of the participants was 47.8 years. the overall prevalence of msps was 65.5% that was more prevalent in women and increased with advancing age approaching the highest prevalence in the group above 75 years (78.4%) (adjusted odds ratio, aor > 1.6). the prevalence increased with diabetes (aor 1.5), ov...

purpose: to evaluate the visual outcomes and complications of low power transpupillary thermotherapy (ttt) in patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (amd). methods: the study included 20 eyes of 17 patients. diagnosis of exudative amd was established on the basis of fundus examination and fluorescein angiography (fa). ttt was performed using a diode laser at 810 nm wavelengt...

Cigarette smoking has deleterious effects on the musculo-skeletal system. The loss of bone mineral content and increased incidence of fractures are the best known negative consequences. The pathogenesis is complex, due to direct toxic effects on osteoblasts/osteoclasts activity of nicotine, and indirect actions on sex and adrenocortical hormones, vitamin D, intestinal calcium absorption, vessel...

OBJECTIVES The effect of preoperative smoking status on the outcome of cardiac surgery remains unclear. Preoperative cessation may be associated with reduced postoperative pulmonary complications and in older patients preoperative smoking status appears to have a greater impact on outcome. This study was designed to assess the relationship between age, preoperative smoking status and outcomes f...

Cigarette smoke, a toxic collection of thousands of chemicals generated from combustion of tobacco, is recognized as the primary causative agent of certain diffuse interstitial and bronchiolar lung diseases. Most patients afflicted with these disorders are cigarette smokers, and smoking cessation has been shown to be capable of inducing disease remission and should occupy a pivotal role in the ...

OBJECTIVE Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) are thought to have a role in the pathogenesis of diabetes complications. We recently reported the association between skin autofluorescence, as a measure of tissue AGE accumulation, and diabetic neuropathy in a selected diabetic population. In this study, we investigated the relation between skin autofluorescence and clinical variables including...

Received April 2, 2009; accepted for publication May 7, 2009 Address reprint requests to Yasunori Akutsu, MD: Department of Frontier Surgery, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, 1–8–1 Inohana, Chuo-ku, Chiba 260–8670, Japan. ©2009 The Editorial Committee of Annals of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. All rights reserved. smoking cessation is an effective strategy to prevent postop...

BACKGROUND In addition to macrovascular and along with other microvascular complications, diabetic patients suffer from some common musculoskeletal complications. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of five musculoskeletal disorders of upper extremity including shoulder capsulitis (SC), limited joint mobility (LJM), Dupuytren's contracture (DC), carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), and ...