Findings suggest that results of magnetic resonance imaging can be used to predict clinical outcome in dogs with paraplegia caused by intervertebral disk extrusion.

Study design: Review. Objectives: To highlight the value of investigating the effects of putative therapeutic interventions in clinical spinal cord injury (SCI) in domestic dogs. Setting: England, UK. Methods: Many experimental interventions in laboratory rodents have been shown to ameliorate the functional deficits caused by SCI; the challenge now is to determine whether they can be translated into useful clinical techniques. Important differences between clinical SCI in human patients and that in laboratory rodents are in the size of the spinal cord and heterogeneity of injury severity. A further key issue is whether the statistical difference in outcome in the laboratory will translate into a useful difference in clinical outcome. Here, we stress the value of investigating the effects of putative therapies in clinical SCI in domestic dogs. The causes of injury, ability to categorise the severity and methods available to measure outcome are very similar between canine and human patients. Furthermore, postmortem tissue more rapidly becomes available from dogs because of their short lifespan than from human patients. Results: The role that investigation of canine SCI might play is illustrated by our preliminary trials on intraspinal transplantation of olfactory glial cells for severe SCI. Conclusions: This canine translational model provides a means of 'filtering' putative treatments before human application.

To describe the long-term effects of nasal continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) on the rate of traffic car accidents, excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) and mood in patients with obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome (OSAS), we investigated the changes of these parameters before and after nasal CPAP treatment using a questionnaire. Seventy-five male patients who were diagnosed with severe OSAS by polysomnography were evaluated for driving competence, by looking at their driving history for 2 yr, for EDS by the Epwarth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) and for mood by the Self-related Depression Scale (SDS), and then underwent nasal CPAP treatment. After 2 yr of treatment, questionnaires inquiring about the patients' use of CPAP, their ESS, SDS and driving history during treatment were sent to the patients. A total of 47 patients (63%) responded to these questionnaires. Forty-six of the 47 responders had continued to use the nasal CPAP and completed the questionnaire. No traffic car accidents were observed among the 39 routine car users during treatment, while 13 of 39 patients (33%) had had car accidents before treatment. Although near-miss accidents had been reported by 32 of 39 patients (82%) before treatment, only four patients reported near-miss accidents during nasal CPAP treatment. The mean score of ESS was significantly (P<0.01) reduced in 46 patients after nasal CPAP. The mean score of SDS was also decreased (P<0.01) after nasal CPAP in 46 patients. Although 26 of 41 patients had been depressive on SDS before treatment, the mood was improved in 13 patients after nasal CPAP. These results suggest that long-term nasal CPAP treatment reduces the rate of traffic car accidents and improves the EDS and the mood in patients with OSAS.

A hyperintense region of the spinal cord > 6 times the length of L2 on T2-weighted imaging might be a characteristic MRI finding of PM. In some dogs, such MRI findings were observed before PM was clinically diagnosed. Progressive myelomalacia may thus be diagnosable at the early stage through MRI and CSF examination before signs of PM develop.

No abstract

The Infectious Diseases Data Observatory (IDDO, https://www.iddo.org) has launched a clinical data platform for the collation, curation, standardisation and reuse of individual participant data (IPD) on treatments for two of the most globally important neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), schistosomiasis (SCH) and soiltransmitted helminthiases (STHs). This initiative aims to harness the power of data-sharing by facilitating collaborative joint analyses of pooled datasets to generate robust evidence on the efficacy and safety of anthelminthic treatment regimens. A crucial component of this endeavour has been the development of a Research Agenda to

SummaryCardiorenal anemia syndrome has recently been receiving greater attention; however, data regarding the relationship between chronic kidney disease (CKD)/anemia on presentation and in-hospital outcome in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) undergoing primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) are still limited in Japan.A total of 1,447 primary PCI-treated AMI patients were classified into 4 groups according to the presence of CKD and/or anemia on hospital admission (with CKD/with anemia n = 222, with CKD/without anemia n = 299, without CKD/with anemia n = 151, without CKD/without anemia n = 775). Angiographic acute results of primary PCI were similar among the 4 groups. The patients with CKD had a significantly higher in-hospital overall mortality rate than the patients without CKD, and in the presence or absence of CKD, patients with anemia tended to have a higher in-hospital mortality rate than the patients without anemia. According to a multivariate analysis, anemia on admission was found to be an independent predictor of in-hospital mortality, whereas admission CKD and admission eGFR were statistically not independent predictors. Moreover, the multivariable adjusted odds ratio of in-hospital death in AMI patients with CKD alone was 1.855 (95% CI 0.929-3.706), and that in AMI patients with CKD/with anemia was 3.384 (95% CI 1.697-6.748).These results suggest that among real-world, unselected Japanese AMI patients undergoing primary PCI, the combination of CKD and anemia on admission confers significant adverse effects on in-hospital mortality. (Int Heart J 2014; 55: 301-306)

Among patients who had undergone appendectomy, 9.7% had appendiceal diverticulitis. Patients with appendiceal diverticulitis had different clinical features and CT findings from patients with acute appendicitis.