‘You have a ticking time-bomb in your body’ is an expression too commonly used by cardiovascular surgeons when counseling patients with asymptomatic aortic aneurysm. Such patients find it difficult to cope with their ‘ticking-bomb’ dilemma—which sooner or later may blow-out their aorta— and often opt for invasive therapy before the ‘risk-vs.benefits’ section of the discussion is over. Based on ...

Two closely linked genes involved in the regulation of exopolysaccharide (EPS) production in Rhizobium sp. strain NGR234, exoX and exoY, were sequenced, and their corresponding phenotypes were investigated. Inhibition of EPS synthesis occurred in wild-type strains when extra copies of exoX were introduced, but only when exoY had been deleted or mutated or was present at a lower copy number. Nor...

The effect of acotiamide on gastrointestinal symptoms is undefined. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of acotiamide on abdominal symptoms in patients with functional dyspepsia. We retrospectively reviewed 51 patients treated with acotiamide. We evaluated patient quality of life using the Izumo scale that detects changes in quality of life caused by abdominal symptoms. Acotiamide a...

BACKGROUND Patients with functional dyspepsia (FD) have increased risks for psychological dysfunction than healthy peoples. This study aimed to explore the roles of psychosocial factors and duodenal mast cells in the pathogenesis of FD. MATERIAL AND METHODS We prospectively included 48 FD patients and 21 age- and sex-match healthy volunteers. There were 23 patients with postprandial distress ...

introduction of atypical antipsychotics. These second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs) share similarities in terms of their side effect and receptor profiles, e.g. lower affinity to dopamine D2 and affinity to serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine [5-HT]) receptors. These characteristics are supposed to account for the ‘atypical’ properties of second-generation antipsychotics, and thus SGAs induce muc...

There are two central issues to consider in assessing the motor side effects of atypical antipsychotic (AA) drugs. The fi rst is the defi nition of what it means to be an AA drug. While one review states that ‘the defi ning characteristic of an AA is its lower risk of inducing EPS [extra pyramidal symptoms] [1]’ there is, in fact, no consensus defi nition [2] of what it means to be ‘atypical’. ...

Methods SOHO is a prospective, observational study of the treatment of schizophrenia in over 10,000 patients in 10 European countries; 3,016 patients were enrolled in Italy. Data were collected at 6-month intervals. Given the complexity of the data, which include medication changes during follow-up, novel statistical methods have been applied, which include epoch analysis. In epoch analysis, pa...