The aim of this study was to verify the effect of an intervention program during Physical Education (PE) classes on levels of physical fitness related to health in youth. This is a pre-experimental study. The students (40 boys and 48 girls) were conveniently selected from a private school in Southern Brazil. Cardiorespiratory fitness was assessed through the six-minute test, recorded in meters (m), flexibility through the sit-and-reach test, recorded in centimeters (cm), abdominal strength/resistance through repetitions in one minute (rep) and body mass index (BMI) through the [mass/height²] equation. The intervention program was conducted in PE classes, often twice a week, during an entire school year. Data analysis was performed using descriptive analysis, Student's t-test and repeated measures ANOVA, taking into consideration p<0.05. The PE program promoted improvement in cardiorespiratory fitness for boys (pre-test: 1123.0m±197.0m; post-test: 1247.2m±139.6m; p=0.002) and girls (pre-test: 940.7m±75.0m; post-test: 1028.7m±67.3m; p=0.001); abdominal strength/resistance for boys (pre-test: 46.15rep±10.15rep; post-test: 53.90rep±10.49rep; p=0.001) and girls (pre-test: 36.39rep±8.32rep; post-test: 44.00rep±6.16rep; p=0.001); and flexibility for boys (pre-test:22.77cm±8.11cm; post-test: 27.60cm±7.23cm; p=0.006) and girls (pre-test: 32.08cm±6.21cm; post-test: 34.89cm±6.43cm; p=0.032). There weren’t changes in mean BMI values. Therefore, it’s considered that the PE program aimed at health promotion through physical fitness can improve the indicators of cardiometabolic and muscle-skeletal health in students.

Background and objectives Physical education (PE) classes are among the main intervention strategies for increasing levels of physical activity (PA) to adolescent's health improvements. However, low levels of psychological satisfaction in physical education classes (PE satisfaction) and multiple associations with some factors as sex, age, sedentarism, sports practice, sleep, quality of life can act as moderators of levels of physical activity. Considering these aspects, this study aims to propose a theoretical model of multivariate relationships to verify the association between PE satisfaction with PA levels, considering the contribution of sports practice, health indicators, age, and sex on these relations. Methods A cross-sectional study with 470 adolescents (230 boys) aged 11–17 years from the south of Brazil. Several questionnaires were applied to measure the study variables. The theoretical/statistical support of the structural equation model was evaluated according to fit parameters and strength of relations. Results Sports practice, health indicators, age, and sex were mediators of the relationship between PE satisfaction and PA levels. Conclusion There is a positive, however indirect, relationship between PE satisfaction with the levels of physical activity in adolescents, with greater strength of association in boys and at younger ages. It was identified that the practice of sport contributes to the main mediator factor for all relationships beneficial to the health of adolescents in the multivariate model. This means that adolescents who practiced sports showed greater PE satisfaction, more appropriate health indicators, associated with higher levels of physical activity as compared to nonpractitioners of sport.

Objective: To assess the intrarater and interrater reliability among rheumatologists of a standardised protocol for measurement of shoulder movements using a gravity inclinometer. Methods: After instruction, six rheumatologists independently assessed eight movements of the shoulder, including total and glenohumeral flexion, total and glenohumeral abduction, external rotation in neutral and in abduction, internal rotation in abduction and hand behind back, in random order in six patients with shoulder pain and stiffness according to a 6×6 Latin square design using a standardised protocol. These assessments were then repeated. Analysis of variance was used to partition total variability into components of variance in order to calculate intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs). Results: The intrarater and interrater reliability of different shoulder movements varied widely. The movement of hand behind back and total shoulder flexion yielded the highest ICC scores for both intrarater reliability (0.91 and 0.83, respectively) and interrater reliability (0.80 and 0.72, respectively). Low ICC scores were found for the movements of glenohumeral abduction, external rotation in abduction, and internal rotation in abduction (intrarater ICCs 0.35, 0.43, and 0.32, respectively), and external rotation in neutral, external rotation in abduction, and internal rotation in abduction (interrater ICCs 0.29, 0.11, and 0.06, respectively). Conclusions: The measurement of shoulder movements using a standardised protocol by rheumatologists produced variable intrarater and interrater reliability. Reasonable reliability was obtained only for the movement of hand behind back and total shoulder flexion. Shoulder pain is common in the general population, its point prevalence averages between 7% and 51% and it is known to increase with age. Restricted range of motion and shoulder pain can interfere with activities in daily life and is associated with work absenteeism and use of medical services.1-5 Many patients receive some evaluation by a family doctor, rheumatologist, orthopaedic specialist, or physical therapist. 3A physical examination is often used for both diagnosis and evaluation of treatment success in patients with shoulder pain. One aspect of physical assessment of the shoulder is the evaluation of range of motion. No "gold standard" for the measurement of shoulder range of motion is yet available. Clinical trials that have assessed the efficacy of interventions for shoulder pain have commonly used range of motion of the shoulder as a measurement tool. 6 To be of value in clinical trials or routine care its reliability (that is, the repeated administration of an instrument to a stable population yielding the same results) should be established.Multiple methods for estimating shoulder range of motion have been used in the past, including visual estimation, the two armed goniometer, or a gravity referenced goniometer. [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] In many of these studies the methods are poorly described and most looked at...

Truncated tissue factor (tTF), retargeted to tumor vasculature by GNGRAHA peptide (tTF-NGR), and doxorubicin have therapeutic activity against a variety of tumors. We report on combination experiments of both drugs using different schedules. We have tested fluorescence- and HPLC-based intratumoral pharmacokinetics of doxorubicin, flow cytometry for cellular phosphatidylserine (PS) expression, and tumor xenograft studies for showing in vivo apoptosis, proliferation decrease, and tumor shrinkage upon combination therapy with doxorubicin and induced tumor vascular infarction. tTF-NGR given before doxorubicin inhibits the uptake of the drug into human fibrosarcoma xenografts in vivo. Reverse sequence does not influence the uptake of doxorubicin into tumor, but significantly inhibits the late wash-out phase, thus entrapping doxorubicin in tumor tissue by vascular occlusion. Incubation of endothelial and tumor cells with doxorubicin in vitro increases PS concentrations in the outer layer of the cell membrane as a sign of early apoptosis. Cells expressing increased PS concentrations show comparatively higher procoagulatory efficacy on the basis of equimolar tTF-NGR present in the Factor X assay. Experiments using human M21 melanoma and HT1080 fibrosarcoma xenografts in athymic nude mice indeed show a combinatorial tumor growth inhibition applying doxorubicin and tTF-NGR in sequence over single drug treatment. Combination of cytotoxic drugs such as doxorubicin with tTF-NGR-induced tumor vessel infarction can improve pharmacodynamics of the drugs by new mechanisms, entrapping a cytotoxic molecule inside tumor tissue and reciprocally improving procoagulatory activity of tTF-NGR in the tumor vasculature via apoptosis induction in tumor endothelial and tumor cells.