Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to A Corrado.
Cerebral pneumography, positive ventriculography and vertebral angiography were employed in the examination of 154 of tumour of brain stem at Departments of Neuroradiology in the city of Naples between 1962 and 1974. The findings in various sites are described and discussed and several examples are presented.
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Bisphosphonates (BP) are pharmacological compounds whose the most important biological effect is the reduction of bone remodelling, explaining the reason for their use in pathological conditions characterised by an increased bone resorption, such as osteoporosis, Paget's disease, malign hypercalcemia during myeloma and osteolytic bone metastasis. Nevertheless there are several experimental evidence that BP possess different extra-skeletal biological effects, ranging from analgesic properties, anti-inflammatory and pro-inflammatory effects and the capacity of modifying the biological activity of cells other than osteoblasts and osteoclasts, such as the immune system cells and other cells of mesenchymal origin. Several data report the beneficial effects of BP as anti-inflammatory agents in different inflammatory chronic articular diseases, which make BP suitable drugs for treatment of pathologies other than bone disease.
Capillaroscopy is a non-invasive diagnostic test used to study microvascular abnormalities which are present in many disorders, particularly some rheumatic pathologies, such as connective tissue diseases. In systemic sclerosis, capillaroscopy allows detection of pathognomonic microvascular alterations. In other connective tissue diseases, including systemic lupus erythematosus, dermatopolymyositis, undifferentiated connective tissue diseases, and mixed connective tissue disease, the capillaroscopic patterns, although non-specific, can provide a valid support for the diagnosis. In Raynaud's phenomenon, capillaroscopy enables detection of early microvascular abnormalities that are useful for preclinical diagnosis of secondary Raynaud's phenomenon.
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BACKGROUND: To date we lack official data on tipology of Diagnosis Related Groups (DRGs) and their quality in Italian Respiratory Intermediate Care Units (RICUs). AIM: The objective of the study was to collect data on the activity of 26 Italian RICUs and to evaluate the quality of the DRGs generated. METHODS: The primary and secondary diseases, the procedures carried out and their coding using the ICD9 system (valid Italy until 2000) were collected from the discharge forms of patients admitted to RICUs. To obtain the DRG, these codes were automatically recoded in the ICD9-CM classification system by Grouper 10. Afterwards, the same diseases and procedures were directly processed by the ICD9-CM classification system. Finally, in order to evaluate the quality of care, the DRGs generated by the ICD9 classification system were compared to DRGs generated by the ICD9-CM classification system. RESULTS: The average weight of the patients cared for in an Italian RICU was 2.05 using the ICD9 classification system and 2.53 using the ICD9-CM classification system. Some non-complicated DRGs (80-97) or non specific DRGs (101-102) were set to zero; others, like DRG 87 appear due to the ability of the ICD9-CM classification system to recognise and accept the fifth digit of the Respiratory Failure code (518.81). The difference in terms of DRG scores generated by the two codification systems was 360.5 DRG points in favour of ICD9-CM. More than 1 million Euro of reimbursements have been lost, as the average national reimbursement for each DRG score is Euro 2,943.80. CONCLUSION: Severe pulmonary diseases determined the case mix of patients cared for in the Italian RICUs during the observed period. The Italian RICUs offer high quality assistance and are characterised by high mean weight per treated patient. However, the activity has been under-estimated due to the low sensitivity of the ICD9 classification system used in the recognition of the real disease and in the correct generation of relative DRG. The ICD9 classification system penalised the recognition of respiratory failure in particular.
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