[Results of IDEAL study]
CZURIGA István
DECEMBER 20, 2005
Lege Artis Medicinae - 2005;15(12)
CZURIGA István
DECEMBER 20, 2005
Lege Artis Medicinae - 2005;15(12)
Lege Artis Medicinae
[Hungary is respected as an “Empire of thermal water” and balneotherapy has been an important part of health tourism. Recently, an increasing number of articles have been published which investigate the effect of thermal water on patients suffering from locomotor diseases. Balneotherapy has a beneficial painkiller effect and improves the quality of life in several cases of inflammatory and degenerative disorders of joint and bone diseases. The physical effect in its mechanism plays much greater role than the chemical one. A great number of evidence can be found in the medical databases proving the positive effect of balneotherapy in musculoskeletal diseases. Balneotherapy stands as an important factor in the National Development Plan of Hungary but we should like to emphasise that without basic research there is no effective balneotherapy.]
Lege Artis Medicinae
Lege Artis Medicinae
[INTRODUCTION - Mondor’s disease is an uncommon disorder occuring mostly in middleaged women and characterized by superficial thrombophlebitis classically involving the thoraco- epigastric veins. Rarely, cases have been reported in atypical sites (upper arms, abdomen, groin and penis). CASE REPORT - This is the first case being published in the Hungarian literature. The young male patient's complaints were caused by penile vein thrombosis which was demonstrated on physical examination and Doppler ultrasonography. Since hereditary thrombophilia and malignancy has been ruled out, we assume that local trauma and venous stasis caused by previous abdominal surgery have been the etiological factors of the disease. CONCLUSION - We give a review of the literature and would like to draw the attention to this rare type of thrombosis, its risk factors and the difficulties of the therapy.]
Lege Artis Medicinae
[INTRODUCTION - Streptococcus pneumoniae (S. pneumoniae) is a very important pathogene of community acquired invasive infections. The aim the study was to collect data on the serotype distribution of invasive S. pneumoniae strains in Hungary and their resistance. In the light of the results it can be determined how effective the currently available polysaccharide vaccine is against the infections caused by invasive S. pneumoniae strains. MATERIALS AND METHODS - The seroprevalence and antibiotic sensitivity of 44 randomly selected isolates of Streptococcus pneumoniae isolated from sterile sites of human body were analysed over a 4 year period (2000-2003). Samples were randomly analysed by the Quellung method. Detection of sensitivity of S. pneumoniae to penicillin and erythromycin were carried out by disc diffusions and E-test method in the microbiological laboratory of the St. Laszlo Hospital. RESULTS - The invasive isolates belong to 22 different serotypes. The prevalence of penicillin and erythromycin sensitivity was 79,5%, and 68% respectively. CONCLUSION - The 23 valent polysaccharide vaccine could provide coverage of 82% of invasive pneumococcal diseases caused by strains analysed in this study.]
Lege Artis Medicinae
[The familial combined hyperlipidemia (FCH) is the most common form of heritable lipid disorder. The prevalence of FCH is 0.5 to 2.0% in the general population, and 15 to 20% in the survivors of myocardial infarction before the age of 60 years. Healthy people spend most part of their life in postprandial state, which is the sum of the 6-8 hours after each main meal spanning over 20 or 24 hour per day. After the ingestion of the fat rich meal the intestinal chylomicrons disturbs the balance of lipid metabolism. The disorder of the lipid transport does not always manifest itself in the fasting state when the lipid transport system is yet at poise. So, the measuring of fasting triglyceride does not reflect exactly the metabolic capacity and the true atherogen risk of the subject. The healthy FCH family members may have got abnormal higher and extended postprandial lipemia contrast of the normal fasting triglyceride levels. The distributions of PvuII and HindIII polymorphisms in FCH are different from normolipidemic controls. At the same time, there is significantly higher incidence of the apo e4 allele. The apo E4/3 genotypes have got higher and extended postprandial lipemia in FCH subjects. In the investigated international and Hungarian FCH groups have got the minor allele of apolipoprotein AV T/C polymorphism more frequently. The carrying status of the minor allele is accompanied with higher fasting lipid levels and associated with higher and extended postprandial lipemia. The Hungarian results suggest a decreased and extended catabolism of the remnants in FCH caused by apoAV T/C promoter variation that seems to have a more direct effect on the postprandial status than that of apoE 3/3-4/3 polymorphism. The knowledge of characteristics of postprandial lipemia influenced by the mutations of genes described by us are more useful as only the fasting triglyceride level and it is as effective as LDL- or HDL-cholesterol value in the measuring of prognosis of development of vascular disease with athero-thrombotic origin.]
Although vertigo is one of the most common complaints, intracranial malignant tumors rarely cause sudden asymmetry between the tone of the vestibular peripheries masquerading as a peripheral-like disorder. Here we report a case of simultaneous temporal bone infiltrating macro-metastasis and disseminated multi-organ micro-metastases presenting as acute unilateral vestibular syndrome, due to the reawakening of a primary gastric signet ring cell carcinoma. Purpose – Our objective was to identify those pathophysiological steps that may explain the complex process of tumor reawakening, dissemination. The possible causes of vestibular asymmetry were also traced. A 56-year-old male patient’s interdisciplinary medical data had been retrospectively analyzed. Original clinical and pathological results have been collected and thoroughly reevaluated, then new histological staining and immunohistochemistry methods have been added to the diagnostic pool. During the autopsy the cerebrum and cerebellum was edematous. The apex of the left petrous bone was infiltrated and destructed by a tumor mass of 2x2 cm in size. Histological reexamination of the original gastric resection specimen slides revealed focal submucosal tumorous infiltration with a vascular invasion. By immunohistochemistry mainly single infiltrating tumor cells were observed with Cytokeratin 7 and Vimentin positivity and partial loss of E-cadherin staining. The subsequent histological examination of necropsy tissue specimens confirmed the disseminated, multi-organ microscopic tumorous invasion. Discussion – It has been recently reported that the expression of Vimentin and the loss of E-cadherin is significantly associated with advanced stage, lymph node metastasis, vascular and neural invasion and undifferentiated type with p<0.05 significance. As our patient was middle aged and had no immune-deficiency, the promoting factor of the reawakening of the primary GC malignant disease after a 9-year-long period of dormancy remained undiscovered. The organ-specific tropism explained by the “seed and soil” theory was unexpected, due to rare occurrence of gastric cancer to metastasize in the meninges given that only a minority of these cells would be capable of crossing the blood brain barrier. Patients with past malignancies and new onset of neurological symptoms should alert the physician to central nervous system involvement, and the appropriate, targeted diagnostic and therapeutic work-up should be established immediately. Targeted staining with specific antibodies is recommended. Recent studies on cell lines indicate that metformin strongly inhibits epithelial-mesenchymal transition of gastric cancer cells. Therefore, further studies need to be performed on cases positive for epithelial-mesenchymal transition.
Clinical Neuroscience
Cognitive dysfunction (CD) is a common non-motor symptom of Parkinson’s disease (PD). Alexithymia is a still poorly understood neuropsychiatric feature of PD. Cognitive impairment (especially visuospatial dysfunction and executive dysfunction) and alexithymia share common pathology of neuroanatomical structures. We hypothesized that there must be a correlation between CD and alexithymia levels considering this relationship of neuroanatomy. Objective – The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between alexithymia and neurocognitive function in patients with PD. Thirty-five patients with PD were included in this study. The Toronto Alexithymia Scale–20 (TAS-20), Geriatric Depression Inventory (GDI) and a detailed neuropsychological evaluation were performed. Higher TAS-20 scores were negatively correlated with Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) similarities test score (r =-0.71, p value 0.02), clock drawing test (CDT) scores (r=-0.72, p=0.02) and verbal fluency (VF) (r=-0.77, p<0.01). Difficulty identifying feelings subscale score was negatively correlated with CDT scores (r=-0.74, p=0.02), VF scores (r=-0.66, p=0.04), visual memory immediate recall (r=-0.74, p=0.01). VF scores were also correlated with difficulty describing feelings (DDF) scores (r=-0.66, p=0.04). There was a reverse relationship between WAIS similarities and DDF scores (r=-0.70, p=0.02), and externally oriented-thinking (r=-0.77,p<0.01). Executive function Z score was correlated with the mean TAS-20 score (r=-62, p=0.03) and DDF subscale score (r=-0.70, p=0.01) Alexithymia was found to be associated with poorer performance on visuospatial and executive function test results. We also found that alexithymia was significantly correlated with depressive symptoms. Presence of alexithymia should therefore warn the clinicians for co-existing CD.
Clinical Neuroscience
[Background – Dizziness is one of the most frequent complaints when a patient is searching for medical care and resolution. This can be a problematic presentation in the emergency department, both from a diagnostic and a management standpoint. Purpose – The aim of our study is to clarify what happens to patients after leaving the emergency department. Methods – 879 patients were examined at the Semmelweis University Emergency Department with vertigo and dizziness. We sent a questionnaire to these patients and we had 308 completed papers back (110 male, 198 female patients, mean age 61.8 ± 12.31 SD), which we further analyzed. Results – Based on the emergency department diagnosis we had the following results: central vestibular lesion (n = 71), dizziness or giddiness (n = 64) and BPPV (n = 51) were among the most frequent diagnosis. Clarification of the final post-examination diagnosis took several days (28.8%), and weeks (24.2%). It was also noticed that 24.02% of this population never received a proper diagnosis. Among the population only 80 patients (25.8%) got proper diagnosis of their complaints, which was supported by qualitative statistical analysis (Cohen Kappa test) result (κ = 0.560). Discussion – The correlation between our emergency department diagnosis and final diagnosis given to patients is low, a phenomenon that is also observable in other countries. Therefore, patient follow-up is an important issue, including the importance of neurotology and possibly neurological examination. Conclusion – Emergency diagnosis of vertigo is a great challenge, but despite of difficulties the targeted and quick case history and exact examination can evaluate the central or peripheral cause of the balance disorder. Therefore, to prevent declination of the quality of life the importance of further investigation is high.]
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Clinical Neuroscience
Alexithymia is associated with cognitive impairment in patients with Parkinson’s disease3.
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Clinical Neuroscience
Cases of inborn errors of metabolism diagnosed in children with autism2.
Clinical Neuroscience
[The first Hungarian patient with Guillain-Barre syndrome after COVID-19]3.
Clinical Neuroscience
Retinal morphological changes during the two years of follow-up in Parkinson’s disease4.
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