Biomedical subjects

G Calori

Publications and source records attributed to G Calori.

76 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

PubMedDate not supplied

Ultrasonography of the hand in rheumatoid arthritis.

High resolution ultrasonography of the hand and wrist was performed on 20 patients with definite or probable rheumatoid arthritis (ARA standard criteria) in its early stage. In all the patients, swelling of the soft tissues of the fingers corresponded to an enlargement of the joint capsule containing a hypoechoic exudate. The rheumatoid nodules appeared as fluid-filled rounded cavities with sharp borders. Rheumatoid tenosynovitis was observed in 18/20 patients. This corresponded to oval or spindle-shaped cavities with a hypoechoic (10/18 cases) or anechoic content (8/18 cases) and with the tendon ribbon inside. Rupture of a tendon was diagnosed in 8/20 cases and it was always confirmed at surgery. Tenosynovitis of the flexor carpi ulnaris at the wrist level was observed in 10/20 patients. Ultrasonography is proposed as an effective first-line approach and as a periodical follow-up survey in early stage rheumatoid arthritis, in combination with standard radiography.

Arthritis, Rheumatoid↗

PubMedDate not supplied

The Italian version of the Functional Disability Index of the Health Assessment Questionnaire. A reliable instrument for multicenter studies on rheumatoid arthritis.

A working group of ten rheumatology institutes (UNIREUM) was formed in Italy to promote multicenter therapeutic studies on rheumatoid arthritis. The Functional Disability Index (FDI) of the Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ) was chosen as a measure of disability. This paper reports the results of a multicenter study to validate an Italian translation of the instrument and to assess its reliability and validity. Two questions were modified to achieve cross-cultural equivalence. Back-translation into English showed agreement with the American instrument. Reproducibility was high: the test-retest correlation coefficient was 0.989 and ranged from 0.81 to 0.99 for the centers taken separately. Validity was confirmed by a correlation coefficient of 0.95 between the patient self-attributed and the physician-attributed FDI scores. We conclude that our Italian version of the HAQ FDI is a reliable and valid self-administered instrument.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Validation of the Italian version of the Stanford Childhood Health Assessment Questionnaire for measuring functional status in children with chronic arthritis.

The Stanford Health Assessment Questionnaire developed by Singh et al. to measure functional status in children with chronic arthritis (CHAQ) was translated into Italian (I-CHAQ), with minor modifications to obtain cross-cultural equivalence. This version was evaluated in a series of 96 patients with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA), both males and females ranging in age from 3 to 19 years (mean age 9.9 years). All three onset subtypes and all four classes of disability were represented in the sample. The questionnaire was filled in by the parents if the children were less than 8 years of age (23 cases), and by the children themselves in all other cases; a health professional was always present to provide assistance. As expected, JRA patients with a systemic or polyarticular disease onset had higher scores than those with a pauciarticular onset, and there were statistically significant differences in disability index values between patients from different Steinbrocker functional classes. The instrument showed good reproducibility in a test-retest over a two-week period, a high correlation between the child and parent scores, excellent internal reliability, and good convergent and discriminant validity.

Activities of Daily Living↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Impact of minimally invasive surgery on adrenalectomy for incidental tumors: comparison with laparotomic technique.

BACKGROUND: To compare laparoscopic and laparotomic techniques for the excision of incidental adrenal tumors. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty patients with silent adrenal tumor underwent adrenalectomy or tumor excision through the laparotomic (LPT Group: 12 cases) or laparoscopic (LPS Group: 8 cases) approach. LPT Group and LPS Group were comparatively analyzed in terms of age, gender, Body Mass Index (BMI), concomitant diseases, previous upper abdominal surgery, tumor side and size, type of operation (excision vs adrenalectomy), associated procedures, and pathology. The two groups were then compared for intra/postoperative complications, length of operation, and postoperative ileus, pain, hospitalization. Comparisons were performed also adjusting for variables (BMI, depression, tumor size) unhomogeneously distributed between the two groups. RESULTS: LPT Group and LPS Group were comparable when evaluated for age, gender, BMI, concomitant diseases (except for depression), previous upper abdominal surgery, tumor side, type of operation, associated procedures, and pathology. Tumor size (LPKT > LPS, p = 0.03) and depression (LPT < LPS, p = 0.04) turned out to be differently distribution between the two groups, and were then considered, as well as the BMI (p = 0.08), in the covariance analysis. Postoperative ileus (LPT vs LPS: 3.5 +/- 0.2 days vs 2.3 +/- 0.2 days, p = 0.006), pain (LPT vs LPS: 3.0 +/- 0.3 days vs 1.7 +/- 0.2 days, p = 0.012), and hospitalization (LPT vs LPS: 7.9 +/- 1.0 days vs 3.5 +/- 0.4 days, p = 0.0002) were statistically shorter in the LPS Group; the length of operation, even if shorter in the LPS Group (LPT vs LPS: 2.9 +/- 0.3 hours vs 2.5 +/- 0.3 hours), did not reach statistical significance (p = 0.12). Results were confirmed by covariance analysis. CONCLUSIONS: Laparoscopy seems a safe and effective approach which permits adrenal surgery with lower surgical stress than laparotomic technique.

Adrenal Cortex Neoplasms↗