Ostheoarthritis (OA) is a social disease characterized by pain, inflammation and stiffness due to an involvement of articular cartilage, soft tissues and bone.OA is the most common rheumatic disease, every age can be affected but prevalence increases dramatically with age with a greater incidence in subjects between 40 and 50 years of age. Hip OA has an important correlation with weight, genetic factors, sex, previous traumas, occupational factors and age. People older than 35 have a prevalence of Hip OA of 10,8% that becomes 35,4% in people older than 85. Knee OA has a great correlation with weight ,life style and physical activity. An Italian study has demonstrated that the prevalence of this kind of OA is highest in subjects older than 65 that becomes 44% in people older than 80. In this report we explain the results of a study conducted in the South of Italy called the OstheoArtrithis Southern Italy Study (OASIS) that involved 456 doctors and 1782 patients of three different regions.The mean age of these patients was 66,3 years and we evaluated prevalence of hip, knee, hand and spine OA and correlated it to sex, age, weight and BMI. We also evaluated what kind of drugs were used for these patients. Knee OA is the most common subset of OA, the one that requires the highest number of examinations and the one that causes the greatest disability.The most common used drugs are Fans and Coxibs. Condroprotectors were not used much, probably because they are not considered to be very effective

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Aims Treating patients with acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF) presenting with volume overload is a common task. However, optimal guidance of decongesting therapy and treatment targets are not well defined. The inferior vena cava (IVC) diameter and its collapsibility can be used to estimate right atrial pressure, which is a measure of right-sided haemodynamic congestion. The CAVA-ADHF-DZHK10 trial is designed to test the hypothesis that ultrasound assessment of the IVC in addition to clinical assessment improves decongestion as compared with clinical assessment alone. Methods and results CAVA-ADHF-DZHK10 is a randomized, controlled, patient-blinded, multicentre, parallel-group trial randomly assigning 388 patients with ADHF to either decongesting therapy guided by ultrasound assessment of the IVC in addition to clinical assessment or clinical assessment alone. IVC ultrasound will be performed daily between baseline and hospital discharge in all patients. However, ultrasound results will only be reported to treating physicians in the intervention group. Treatment target is relief of congestion-related signs and symptoms in both groups with the additional goal to reduce the IVC diameter ≤21 mm and increase IVC collapsibility >50% in the intervention group. The primary endpoint is change in N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide from baseline to hospital discharge. Secondary endpoints evaluate feasibility, efficacy of decongestion on other scales, and the impact of the intervention on clinical endpoints. Conclusions CAVA-ADHF-DZHK10 will investigate whether IVC ultrasound supplementing clinical assessment improves decongestion in patients admitted for ADHF.

The authors investigated the effects of clonidine (alpha-2 stimulating agent) on blood glucose, insulin and glucagon levels in order to assess the alpha-adrenergic regulation of endocrine pancreatic secretion. Ten hypertensive female subjects affected with type 2 diabetes were studied; each subject was given a protein meal (boiled beef 200 g); blood samples were taken at -30, 0, 30, 60, 90 and 120 min; after this test each subject was treated for 4 days with clonidine (0.150 mg, 3 times/day per os); at the 5th day the protein meal was repeated under the same conditions except for the added administration of clonidine. Plasma glucose, insulin and glucagon were estimated. The administration of a protein meal caused a significant increase of blood glucose (peak at 60 min), insulin (peak at 90 min) and glucagon (peak at 90 min) levels; the association of clonidine caused an increase of blood glucose (single values and total areas) without changes of insulin and glucagon levels, when compared to those obtained before clonidine treatment. In conclusion, the association of clonidine to a protein meal caused impaired glucose tolerance presumably due to a direct glycogenolytic effect, occurring in the liver on account of an alpha-2 receptor stimulation, insulin and glucagon not being involved in this phenomenon.