Treatment with EPO at a dose of 10,000 U thrice weekly can rapidly and safely increase B-Hb levels in a high proportion of patients with advanced gastrointestinal cancers. QoL is influenced by the B-Hb increase, but also by the course of the underlying malignancy. It is therefore difficult to define clearly the clinical relevance of the B-Hb increase as such.
A five-year follow-up of 53 diabetic patients admitted for their first stroke in 1972-73 has been performed. They were compared with two groups of 53 non-diabetic patients each with cerebrovascular disease (CVD), one randomly selected and one matched with the diabetics for age, sex and diagnosis of CVD at discharge. All patients could be traced at follow-up. The mean age at the time of first stroke was 66.5 years in male and 73.2 years in female diabetics. Manifest diabetes was diagnosed in 19 % during hospitalization for stroke; of the remainder, 74 % had had diabetes since less than ten years. In 85 % of the diabetics there were no signs of severe angiopathy affecting eyes, kidneys or lower extremities. The majority of diabetic as well as nondiabetic CVD patients had a history of hypertension and/or heart disease. Few were overweight. Case fatality rate was significantly higher in diabetics than in non-diabetics throughout the follow-up fp cO.01 for diabetics vs. matched non-diabetics, p
The clinical diagnosis of the type of acute cerebrovascular diseases is often considered unreliable, although this has not been validated prospectively in representative patients. The accuracy of bedside diagnostics was, therefore, tested in 206 patients consecutively admitted to the Stroke Unit of the Serafimerlasarettet in Stockholm. Bedside diagnosis turned out to be correct in 69%. In 24% the diagnoses were altered after hospital investigation and in the remaining 7% no defined preliminary and/or final diagnosis could be made. When the diagnoses were considered "fairly certain" they were accurate in 87%, compared to 53% when regarded as only "probable". The diagnostic accuracy improved during the period studied. Sensitivity in identifying hemorrhages was much lower (39%) than for cerebral infarctions (83%). It is suggested that new investigational methods should be compared with what can be accomplished with bedside methods alone.
In patients with acute ischemic stroke, dramatic but often transient improvements have been noticed after theophylline injections. Whether better results could be obtained by continuous infusion of the drug was evaluated in a double-blind study. Out of 46 patients with a mean age of 75 years, 22 got theophylline as aminophylline (bolus dose of 230 mg followed by 0.5 mg/kg/h) and 24 placebo during 3 days. The groups were comparable in all aspects at the outset of the trial. Serum theophylline concentrations were kept within the therapeutic range recommended for patients with asthma. No significant difference in outcome was noticed between the groups during the hospital period when repeated neurological assessments by two different scores and mortality were compared.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.