Nordisk medicin最新文献

The main objective of neurointensive care is to counteract the development of secondary brain ischemia. The management is focused on preventing, detecting and correcting secondary insults that are likely to produce ischemic brain damage. This requires intensive multimodality monitoring of the brain. There is no reliable technique available for continuous monitoring of cerebral blood flow and therefore intermittent methods have to be used in some cases for objective measurement of cerebral perfusion. PET allows measurements of both cerebral blood flow and metabolism, which is essential for the assessment of the energy metabolic state of the brain tissue. PET may be used to guide therapeutic intervention, to evaluate the effect of treatment, to validate new techniques for monitoring of the brain and to determine the efficacy of potential neuroprotective drugs. The possibilities that PET offers in neurointensive care and research are illustrated. The experiences from the application of PET in the evaluation of pharmacological treatment of increased intracranial pressure in head injured patients and the use of PET in combination with intracerebral microdialys, in an MCA-occlusion-reperfusion primate model and in patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage, to validate intracerebral microdialysis as an instrument for chemical monitoring of the brain during neurointensive care, are reported.

Thiazide diuretics lower while loop diuretics promote calcium excretion by the kidney. Several studies have found thiazide use to be associated with higher bone mineral density and some have found that thiazides reduce the risk of hip fracture. The mechanisms by which thiazides favour preservation of the bones are uncertain. Thiazide use results in decreased renal calcium excretion and thiazide users have been shown to have lower levels of S-PTH and S-1,25-dihydroxy-vitamin D. The beneficial bone effects may result from a decrease in PTH-stimulated bone resorption and an associated reduction in the bone turn-over rate. Whether loop diuretics increases the bone turn-over by augmenting the urinary calcium excretion is more controversial as only few studies have been carried out on loop diuretics. However, in these studies the use of loop diuretics have been associated with decreased bone mineral density and increased risk of fractures. Future research should determine the minimal dose of thiazide therapy necessary to produce a sustained hypocalciuric effect and in addition the influence of diuretic dose on bone turn-over. Equally important is the need to evaluate potential unwanted effects of loop diuretics. In the mean time, thiazide diuretics may be used safely while some caution is necessary in the long term use of loop diuretics in patients who are prone to osteoporosis.

Neuroimaging techniques have a great impact on the evaluation and treatment of patients with epilepsy. Positron emission tomographic studies with 18F-FDG can provide valuable data for presurgical localization of epileptogenic zones. There are also a number of receptor ligands for PET studies available, including benzodiazepine, opiate and cholinergic tracers. Ligands for monoamine oxidase B and glutamate receptors are being developed.

PET (positron emission tomography) has yielded manifest improvements in our knowledge of Parkinson's disease, in terms of pathological and pharmacological aspects. Since PET was introduced in study of Parkinson's disease 15 years ago, the technique has been steady refined, and more tracers are becoming available. The possibility of monitoring the dopamine system in longitudinal studies will no doubt become cornerstone in the evaluation of neuroprotective therapies.

Next to headache recurrent gastro-intestinal complaints constitute the most common reason for medical consultation among daycare and school children. The use of more sophisticated examination methods has shown that in up to 50 per cent of cases the cause of the gastric complaints is a treatable disease or a functional anomaly of the gastro-intestinal tract. The commonest conditions are lactose intolerance, gluten sensitivity, gastro-oesophageal reflux, and gastritis. In some cases stomach pain is triggered by psychosomatic mechanisms. Depending upon the child's age, aetiological indications can sometimes be derived from history taking. In many cases the investigations can be made in the out-patient clinic. The cornerstones of treatment are various kinds of dietary elimination regimens, prokinetic agents, and antibiotics. Recently, the investigation of neuroendocrinological and neurophysiological processes related to psychosomatic causes of gastric complaints has once again become common.