Appropriate control of the ventricular rate or the maintenance of sinus rhythm offers long-term benefits in specific groups of patients. Catheter ablation or “”Maze”" surgery has proven to be curative to some patients. However, the implementation of the evidence-based therapeutic strategies in the day-to-day care of the AF patients have been found to vary greatly from one institution to another, some of which are hindering the achievement of optimal long-term outcomes. In this brief review, some of the key strategies in the evidence-based
management of AF are discussed, with particular emphasis on anti-thrombotic therapy, rhythm or rate control, as well as catheter ablation.”
“Objective: NVP-HSP990 Recombinant human type Il collagen
(rhCII) gels combined with autologous chondrocytes were tested as a scaffold for cartilage repair in rabbits in vivo.
Method: Autologous chondrocytes were harvested, expanded and combined with rhCII-gel and further pre-cultivated for 2 weeks prior to transplantation into a 4 mm diameter lesion created into the rabbit’s femoral trochlea (n = MDV3100 purchase 8). Rabbits with similar untreated lesions (n = 7) served as a control group. Results: Six months after the transplantation the repair tissue in both groups filled the lesion site, but in the rhCII-repair the filling was more complete. Both repair groups also had high proteoglycan and type II collagen contents, except in the fibrous superficial layer. However, the integration to the adjacent cartilage was incomplete. The O’Driscoll grading showed
no significant differences between the rhCII-repair and spontaneous repair, both representing lower quality Rapamycin order than intact cartilage. In the repair tissues the collagen fibers were abnormally organized and oriented. No dramatic changes were detected in the subchondral bone structure. The repair cartilage was mechanically softer than the intact tissue. Spontaneously repaired tissue showed lower values of equilibrium and dynamic modulus than the rhCII-repair. However, the differences in the mechanical properties between all three groups were insignificant.
Conclusion: When rhCII was used to repair cartilage defects, the repair quality was histologically incomplete, but still the rhCII-repairs showed moderate mechanical characteristics and a slight improvement over those in spontaneous repair. Therefore, further studies using rhCII for cartilage repair with emphasis on improving integration and surface protection are required. (C) 2012 Osteoarthritis Research Society International. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Purpose: We investigated the safety of triple combination therapy by addition of Paclitaxel (PTX) to Cisplatin (CDDP) and 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) combination therapy, which was considered the conventional standard therapy for patients with unresectable / recurrent gastric cancer. Material and
Methods: The doses of PTX and CDDP were fixed at 80 and 50 mg/m2.