Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to A Maggioni.
The best knowledge of the biological and genetic mechanism involved in the process of metastasizing must determine the attempt of elaborating new therapeutical modalities. The authors show the sequential events of the metastasizing process based on the most recent theories, underlining the way the organotropism of the neoplastic cells can be the explanation of the otherwise inexplicable metastases.
The authors briefly illustrate some biological and epidemiologic characteristics of the malignant urologic tumors; then they describe the modalities of metastasizing underlining that this process is determined not only by hematic and lymphatic dissemination but also by sequential and complex events "metastatic fall", involving multiple guest-tumor intersections to the organotropism of the neoplastic cells and to their intrinsic aggressiveness and to the histological type of tumor. Afterwards the authors analytically analyze the most important malignant neoplasms of the urogenital apparatus either as clinical importance or as statistic incidence.
In the Western world the percentage of subjects over the age of 60 years is rapidly increasing. Therefore, elderly individuals represent a progressively increasing proportion of patients with ischemic heart disease (IHD), which is the most prevalent disease in this age range. In the elderly both the clinical presentation and the outcome of IHD have some peculiar features which may have important therapeutic implications. The prevalence of both coronary atherosclerosis and uncomplicated angina pectoris increases up to the sixth decade when it reaches a plateau. Conversely, the prevalence of myocardial infarction increases progressively at increasing ages without reaching any plateau at all. These findings indicate that the higher prevalence of myocardial infarction in the elderly is not caused by a worsening of the atherosclerotic background, but rather by a greater prevalence and/or severity of the functional factors such as local smooth muscle hyperreactivity, local thrombotic stimuli and alterations of the systemic thrombosis-thrombolysis equilibrium which are more directly responsible for the irreversible occlusion of a coronary artery branch. Therefore, the prevention of IHD in the elderly should focus mainly on the ischemic stimuli leading to coronary thrombosis rather than on the atherosclerotic background. Another important feature of IHD in the elderly is the high short and medium-term mortality of acute myocardial infarction. This excess of mortality is caused mainly by a much higher incidence of cardiac rupture, which does not appear to be related to the severity of coronary atherosclerosis nor to the infarct size.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Thirty-one consecutive patients with clinically and histologically documented urothelial cancer of the urinary bladder of category T3-T4a, N0, M0 underwent a trial of neoadjuvant chemotherapy before radical cystectomy. All patients received 2 courses of methotrexate 300 mg/m2 day 1 followed by folinic acid rescue days 2 and 3 and cisplatin 100 mg/m2 day 4, q. 3 weeks. Only responders were to receive 2 further courses of chemotherapy. The protocol was violated in 5 cases and all did poorly. Of the remaining 26 patients, 19 (73%) had a partial or complete remission to neoadjuvant chemotherapy. The actuarial disease-free survival was very encouraging at 18 months (87% for responders versus 43% for the 7 non responders), but at 30 months the difference became minimal (60% versus 43%). Furthermore, all 3 responders who had refused radical cystectomy relapsed locally. Postoperative randomized trials are necessary to prove the advantage of neoadjuvant therapy with a long term survival and bladder preservation.
Between July 1985 and December 1988, 31 consecutive patients with category T3b-T4a (NOMO) urothelial cancer of the urinary bladder were entered into a phase II study of neoadjuvant chemotherapy with medium-dose methotrexate (300 mg/m2 followed by folinic acid rescue), cisplatin (100 mg/m2 continuous i.v. infusion) every 4 weeks for a total of 4 courses. Six patients did not respond to the first two courses of neoadjuvant chemotherapy and another 3 were considered non-responders after 4 courses. Three of these 9 patients progressed and could not undergo salvage cystectomy. Only 4 patients (13%) entered complete remission, and one of them refused surgery. All the 18 (58%) partial responders underwent radical cystectomy. The overall 2-year disease-free survival is 72%: it is 100% for the 4 complete responders, 76% for the 18 partial responders and 56% for the 9 nonresponders. A longer follow-up is necessary to evaluate the impact of the neoadjuvant chemotherapy on survival of category T3b-T4a (NOMO) bladder cancer.
The 1-year prognosis of 293 patients discharged alive from the hospital after acute myocardial infarction (AMI), who experienced primary ventricular fibrillation (VF) in the acute phase, was compared with that of a reference group of 6,337 patients identified from the same population included in the Gruppo Italiano per lo Studio della Streptochinasi nell'Infarto miocardico (GISSI) trial. There was no difference in the 6- and 12-month mortality between the patients with primary VF and the reference group (3.7 vs 2.7% and 4.1 vs 4.2%, respectively). Survival of the 2 groups was also similar when patients were stratified according to infarct site (anterior and posterior), and whether or not they received treatment with streptokinase during AMI. Thus, long-term mortality of patients discharged alive after AMI complicated by primary VF is low and is not influenced by previous fibrinolytic therapy or by infarct site. The excess mortality of patients with primary VF is confined to the hospital phase, after which survivors represent a low-risk subgroup.
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The in-hospital prognosis of patients with acute myocardial infarction complicated by primary ventricular fibrillation has not been satisfactorily defined. We addressed this question by studying patients with primary ventricular fibrillation derived from a large study (11,712 patients) of intravenous streptokinase in the treatment of acute myocardial infarction. Ventricular fibrillation was considered to be primary when it complicated a first myocardial infarction not associated with heart failure or shock and occurred within 48 hours of hospital admission. The 332 patients with primary ventricular fibrillation represented an overall incidence of 2.8 percent. A significant excess of in-hospital deaths was found in the patients with primary ventricular fibrillation as compared with those in the reference group (10.8 percent vs. 5.9 percent; relative risk, 1.94; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.35 to 2.78). Thrombolytic treatment with intravenous streptokinase did not afford protection against primary ventricular fibrillation. We observed that being over 65 years old had a protective effect against primary ventricular fibrillation (relative risk, 0.6; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.45 to 0.80). Our data do not indicate whether primary ventricular fibrillation is simply a marker for patients at increased risk of death or a direct cause of the increase in mortality. Our results do show, however, that primary ventricular fibrillation occurring in a coronary care unit is a negative predictor of short-term survival in patients with acute myocardial infarction.
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Anterograde block in the accessory pathway with a short effective refractory period was observed after intravenous (IV) injection of 1 mg/kg of ajmaline in two patients with the Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome. The possibility of a false-negative response to this test is discussed. Ajmaline is proposed as an emergency drug in the Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome in the setting of atrial fibrillation with a very high ventricular rate.
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This report first describes the efficiency achieved by a large scale clinical trial (GISSI), which is widely recognized as having made an important contribution to the therapy of AMI, and second emphasizes how a comprehensive research project based upon an innovative clinical trial methodology can influence the attitude and the scientific productivity of a professional community operating within a national health system. To understand the methodology of GISSI, one must appreciate both the cultural and institutional setting in which the first GISSI trial took place as well as the strong economic and scientific expectation surrounding the second GISSI trial.
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