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Biomedical subjects

L Miano

Publications and source records attributed to L Miano.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1990

Association between habitual coffee consumption and blood pressure levels.

The relationship between habitual coffee consumption and blood pressure was investigated in 9601 subjects (7506 men and 2095 women) who were office managers and employees, aged 18-65 years. Those who drank coffee had lower blood pressure levels than those who did not and the mean blood pressure levels decreased with increasing coffee consumption. In the men, blood pressure (systolic/diastolic) was highest in the non-coffee drinkers (130.0/83.0 mmHg) and lowest in those drinking greater than 5 cups/day (126.0/81.3 mmHg). Mean differences (+/- s.e.m.) corrected by analysis of covariance for age and body mass index (kg/m2) were: systolic -4.0 +/- 0.7 mmHg, P less than 0.0001; diastolic -1.7 +/- 0.5 mmHg, P less than 0.001. In the women, blood pressure ranged from 121.1/77.4 mmHg in the non-coffee drinkers to 117.7/76.2 mmHg in those drinking greater than 5 cups/day (mean +/- s.e.m. systolic difference -3.4 +/- 1.4 mmHg, P less than 0.05; diastolic -1.2 +/- 0.9 mmHg, P greater than 0.05). These observations were confirmed after correction for physical activity, and cigarette and alcohol consumption (for age and body mass index). In the men, blood pressure ranged from 130.8/83.1 mmHg in non-coffee drinkers to 127.5/81.9 mmHg in those drinking greater than 5 cups/day, with the effect of classification by coffee consumption being very important (analysis of covariance: systolic F = 12.17, 3 degrees of freedom at numerator, P less than 0.0001; diastolic F = 3.56, 3 degrees of freedom at numerator, P = 0.0135).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Magnetic resonance imaging in the localization of undescended abdominal testes.

In children with nonpalpable undescended testes, preoperative localization is very helpful prior to surgical investigation both to reduce the time required for complete exploration and to plan the correct surgical procedure. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was accomplished in 23 patients with a clinical diagnosis of cryptorchidism after ultrasonographic studies were inconclusive in identifying the undescended testis. An abdominal testis was correctly located in 16 cases. No structures resembling testicular parenchyma were detected in 4 instances. The surgical findings confirmed the absence of testes in 2 patients but showed 2 abdominal testes not seen by MRI. The movements of 5 patients caused inadequate MRI examinations, so these patients were not considered in the results. In our experience MRI proved to be effective in locating undescended abdominal testes with a diagnostic accuracy of 90%. Therefore MRI should be performed before any invasive diagnostic procedure. Lack of cooperation in young patients could reduce the accuracy of the procedure, so we think that sedation should be performed in children under 6 years of age.

Abdomen↗
PubMed1990

Review of norfloxacin in lower urinary tract infections.

A review of worldwide clinical trials with norfloxacin in the treatment of uncomplicated urinary tract infections (UTIs), as well as our personal experience with 215 assessable patients, is presented. Almost all patients received 400 mg b.i.d. for 3-15 days. Bacteriological eradication (10(4) CFU/ml of urine or less) was achieved in more than 90% of patients. Short-term therapy (3 days) with norfloxacin proved to be as effective and tolerable as a 10- to 14-day conventional therapeutic schedule in the treatment of lower uncomplicated UTIs. Overall incidence of drug-related adverse experiences was 2.3%.

Clinical Trials as Topic↗
PubMed1990

Local/regional recombinant interleukin 2 (rIL-2) immunotherapy of tumors. Intra-arterial continuous infusion of rIL-2 in bladder cancer patients: a phase I study.

We have investigated clinical and immunological effects of two 5-day cycle continuous infusion of four escalating doses (3,000; 30,000; 300,000; 3,000,000 U/m2/day) of intra-arterial (i.a.) rIL-2, in ten patients with superficial (Ta-T1, N0, M0) bladder TCC. Tumor TUR was performed four days after the end of the second IL-2 cycle. No clinical or laboratory toxicity was detected in any but one patient, who developed grade III hypotension and grade III neurological toxicity. Two CR and two PR were observed in patients treated with 30,000 and 300,000 U/m2/day of rIL-2, respectively. Clinical responses lasted 8+, 8+, 4+ and 4+ months, respectively. Two out of ten patients developed recurrences two months after tumor resection. In the peripheral blood, no changes in the percentage of T (CD3+) lymphocytes were observed, while a significant increase of CD3+ CD16+ T cells was found in 6/9 patients. In contrast, NK (CD3- CD16+) cells were augmented only in 2/9 patients. An increase of B lymphocytes (CD19+ cells) and monocytes (CD14+ cells) was also observed in 3/9 and 7/9 patients, respectively. Lymphocyte activation marker expression (CD25, CD71, HLA-DR) increased mainly on T lymphocytes. NK and LAK activities were enhanced in 4/10 patients, while ADCC activity augmented in 2/10 patients. No detectable increased levels of plasmatic lymphokines (gamma-IFN and alpha-TNF) were found. Enhanced CD8+ and CD4+ tumor infiltrating lymphocytes were demonstrated after IL-2 treatment. Moreover, at the tumor site, lymphocytes expressing CD25 and HLA-DR antigens were noted. Tumor infiltrating macrophages were positive for IL-1 alpha, IL-1 beta and alpha-TNF.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Multicenter comparative study of aztreonam and gentamicin in the treatment of renal and urinary tract infections.

A multicenter comparative study was carried out to evaluate the efficacy of aztreonam and gentamicin in 186 patients with symptomatic renal or urinary tract infections. Patients were divided randomly into two groups: 94 patients received aztreonam 1 g/day intramuscularly and 92 patients received gentamicin 80 mg i.m. twice daily. The clinical and microbiologic results found a single daily dose of aztreonam to be more effective than gentamicin b.i.d. Furthermore, no evidence of side effects was seen with aztreonam. Such results are generally thought to ensure better compliance in outpatients.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Testicular changes after treatment with a GnRH analog (buserelin) in association with cyproterone acetate in men with prostatic cancer.

Twelve patients (age range: 53-78 years) with prostatic cancer were treated with Buserelin (1.2 mg/day) and cyproterone acetate (150 mg/day). Testicular biopsies performed after 13-96 weeks of treatment were compared to those obtained from 6 untreated men of similar age. Deranged spermatogenesis was observed in all but 1 treated patient. The appearance of immature Sertoli cells and atrophic Leydig cells suggests a condition of pharmacologic 'hypophysectomy'. The variable damage to the seminiferous epithelium and findings of an incomplete involution of Leydig cells suggested a decreased but still present testicular steroidogenesis.

Aged↗
PubMed1988

High-performance liquid chromatographic analysis of norfloxacin in human tissues and plasma with fluorescence detection.

A high-performance liquid chromatographic analysis with fluorimetric detection is described for the quantitative determination of norfloxacin in renal, prostatic tissues and in plasma. The analytical procedure in the tissue pretreatment, consists of purification of the obtained sample by a solid state extraction and quantitation by HPLC. The samples were chromatographed on a C(8) reversed-phase column. Analytical recoveries ranged from 95.2 to 97.6%. Within and between day precision were assessed by analysing serum containing 50 and 500 ng/ml norfloxacin. At each concentration, within day precision was < or = 3.6% (relative standard deviation, n = 10) and day-to-day precision was < or = 5.3% (n = 10). Limit of detection was ca 1 ng/ml.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1988

Early diagnosis of prostatic carcinoma based on in vitro culture of viable tumor cells harvested by prostatic massage.

Prostatic cancer is diagnosed too late in most cases, so that therapy is frequently ineffective or even not undertaken at all because of the already advanced stage of the disease. An early diagnosis technique for prostatic cancer would therefore be highly desirable, also because all other available markers give very unsatisfactory results. Because of our experience in tissue culture of human prostatic specimens, by which we have shown good correlations with patient prognosis, we attempted to grow epithelial cells collected from prostatic fluid after rectal prostatic massage. Samples from prostatic cancer patients, diagnosed by needle biopsy, were grown in culture and were able to survive in vitro for at least 2 weeks, thus providing morphological and biochemical data concerning their neoplastic and differentiation features. The early data on this new approach, which we believe might represent a very useful test for the early diagnosis of the neoplasm, are reported here. The method is noninvasive and suitable for mass screening of the disease. Accuracy and reliability of the technique are currently being tested.

Carcinoma↗
PubMed1988

Short-term tissue culture of prostatic carcinoma samples provides useful biological parameters related to patient prognosis.

In order to identify new data to be able to better evaluate patient prognosis in prostatic carcinoma (PRCA), we started a study 6 years ago correlating in vitro parameters from human PRCA samples grown in tissue culture with histological diagnosis of the same tumors [Eur. Urol. 11: 330-333, 1985]. The original study has been extended with more cases and updated with follow-up of the patients. To date, we evaluated 51 specimens of PRCA (18 grade I, 19 grade II, 13 grade III and 1 grade IV) and 8 of benign prostatic hypertrophy. Tissue samples were cultured in medium DME plus 10% fetal calf serum, 10% horse serum and 50 ng/ml each of hydrocortisone and insulin. Epithelial cells grown from the explants showed an average life in culture and morphological and biochemical features in good correlation with tumor grade. Short cultural life span, regular growth and positive secretion activity are typical of low-grade tumors, meanwhile the opposite is true for high-grade tumors. Of these patients, 15 were evaluable for prognosis, because they died or because they were followed-up for at least 3 years. In this group we compared tissue culture data with survival and found a fairly good correlation between growth parameters and clinical outcome of each case. Although more cases are needed to provide statistical significance to the results, the data we collected seem to indicate that low-grade tumors susceptible of poorer prognosis can be identified by a short-term tissue culture showing morphological atypias and long average life span. This method may be easily reproduced in any hospital equipped with a tissue culture unit.

Carcinoma↗
PubMed1985

Human prostatic carcinoma in tissue culture: correlations between histological diagnosis and in vitro parameters.

Prostatic cell biology is still largely unknown so that even the natural history of prostatic carcinoma is unpredictable. In order to correlate new observations with the prognosis of patients with prostatic carcinoma of various grades, we followed up 24 in vitro samples from surgical specimens of prostatic carcinoma. Fragments from 7 grade-I, 10 grade-II, 6 grade-III; and 1 grade-IV tumors were cultivated in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium supplemented with 10% fetal calf serum, 10% horse serum and 50 ng/ml each of hydrocortisone and insulin. Epithelial cells grown from the explants continued to grow for a maximum of 120 days and their morphology varied from a fairly regular monolayer of polygonal cells to irregular patterns of overlapping growth with many giant multinucleated cells. Although our data need a longer clinical follow-up time and larger numbers to achieve any statistical significance, the present findings seem to indicate rather clearly that a short life span in culture, a regular growth and a positive secretion activity is typical of low-grade tumors and that a longer life span, an irregular growth and a negative secretion in vitro are characteristics of high-grade tumors. A longer clinical follow-up of these patients will be important in the future to indicate whether these findings can be of any real prognostic value.

Aged↗
PubMed1981

Incidence of normocalcemic hyperparathyroidism in idiopathic hypercalciuria: evaluation by dietary calcium deprivation test.

Calcium metabolism was studied in 37 patients with "idiopathic hypercalciuria" on a home diet and after 10 days of low calcium dietary intake (less than 400 mg/24h). After low calcium intake, urinary calcium excretion returned to within normal limits in 70% of the cases. In the group of patients which failed to respond to calcium restriction, TmPO4/GFR values were reduced and, furthermore, in 20% of them plasma iPTH and urinary cAMP levels were increased. These data seem to indicate that: the incidence of absorptive hypercalciuria is higher than hypercalciuria of renal origin; normocalcemic hyperparathyroidism due to primary calcium leak is present only in a limited number of cases, consequently, hypercalciuria secondary to renal phosphate leak is a rather frequent occurrence.

Calcium↗
PubMed1980

A radioenzymatic assay for free and conjugated normetanephrine and octopamine excretion in man.

A radioenzymatic method for the measurement of free and conjugated normetanephrine (NMN) and octopamine (OCT) is described for human urine. The assay is based on the conversion of NMN or OCT to radiolabeled metanephrine (MN) or synephrine (SYN) by phenylethanolamine-N-methyl transferase (PNMT), using tritium-labeled S-adenosyl-methionine [3H]SAM as methyl donor. Thin-layer chromatographic separation yields an assay of high specificity. The sensitivity of the assay is 5 and 2.5 pg of NMN or OCT, respectively. The normal value of free and conjugated NMN was found to be 23 +/- 13 and 102 +/- 49 ng/mg creatinine. Four patients with pheochromocytoma had highly increased levels of free and conjugated NMN. The urinary excretions of free and total octopamine were 5.7 +/- 2.8 and 34.8 +/- 16.6 ng/mg of creatinine, respectively, in normal patients.

Adult↗
PubMed1979

Increased catecholamine excretion after labetalol therapy: a spurious effect of drug metabolites.

Patients with essential hypertension were treated for four weeks with the alpha- and beta-adreno-receptor blocking agent labetalol. Urinary excretion of total catecholamines, metanephrine plus normetanephrine and vanillylmandelic acid was measured with various methods before and during treatment. An unidentified substance interfering with the fluorimetric method for catecholamines and the photometric assay for metanephrines caused falsely high values of those substances. Using appropriate methodology no changes of total catecholamines, metanephrine plus normetanephrine and vanillylmandelic acid excretion were found after labetalol therapy. Our findings are important in preventing errors in the diagnosis of pheochromocytoma as well as in the evaluation of the effects of labetalol on the sympathetic nervous system in man.

Catecholamines↗
PubMed1979

Increased plasma and urinary normetanephrine in young patients with primary hypertension.

1. Normetanephrine was measured in small samples of plasma and urine of hypertensive patients and normal volunteers (age 20-60 years) by a specific radioenzymatic assay with bovine adrenal phenylethanolamine N-methyltransferase and tritiated S-adenosylmethionine. 2. Noradrenaline was measured simultaneously in plasma and urine. 3. Plasma normetanephrine and noradrenaline concentrations varied in direct proportion to activation or suppression of sympathetic nerve function. 4. Both plasma and urinary normetanephrine concentrations were elevated in patients with phaeochromocytoma. 5. Plasma normetanephrine concentrations were related to plasma noradrenaline concentrations of hypertensive subjects. 6. Plasma normetanephrine and noradrenaline concentrations and urinary normetanephrine excretion rates were increased in some young patients with primary hypertension, suggesting that sympathetic nerve hyperactivity is a pathogenic factor in these patients.

Adrenal Glands↗