The purpose of this study was to establish normal values of muscle thickness, ratio of muscle thickness to subcutaneous fat thickness, and muscle echo intensity in children between 11 weeks and 16 years of age. Transverse scans of four muscles were made by standardized real-time ultrasound examination. The scans were digitized, and mean echo intensity was measured using gray-scale analysis. A multiple regression equation was used to study which independent parameter (age, height, weight, or sex) influenced the variables for each muscle. Muscle thickness depended on the child's weight. The other parameters did not significantly influence muscle thickness after correction for weight. The ratio of muscle thickness to subcutaneous fat thickness depended on age. Echo intensity showed no correlation with either of the variables. As a result, all normal values, including the equation to calculate them, are described. These normal data may help to determine the diagnostic value of muscle ultrasound in children with suspected neuromuscular disease.
We determined prospectively the diagnostic value of quantitative ultrasonography in detecting neuromuscular disorders in children. Ultrasonographic scans of four muscles were made in 36 children with symptoms or signs suggestive of neuromuscular disease, such as muscle weakness and hypotonia. The muscle thickness, ratio of muscle thickness to subcutaneous fat thickness, and echo intensity were determined in each muscle. The echo intensity was measured using computer-assisted gray-scale analysis. Thirteen of the 36 patients had a neuromuscular disorder (6 a myopathy and 7 a neuropathy). Differentiation between neuromuscular diseases and nonneuromuscular diseases could be made on the basis of echo intensities with a sensitivity of 92%, a specificity of 90%, a positive predictive value of 86%, and a negative predictive value of 95%. We conclude that computer-assisted quantitative analysis of muscle echo intensity is a reliable method to discriminate between neuromuscular and nonneuromuscular diseases in children.
This study demonstrates that exercise training in women who had had preeclampsia and control subjects improves components of MetS, endothelial function, vascular wall thickness, and autonomic control. Nonetheless, trained women who had had preeclampsia only reached a cardiovascular status that is comparable with sedentary healthy control subjects.
The objectives of our study were to examine 1) the proportion of responders and nonresponders to exercise training in terms of vascular function; 2) a priori factors related to exercise training-induced changes in conduit artery function, and 3) the contribution of traditional cardiovascular risk factors to exercise-induced changes in artery function. We pooled data from our laboratories involving 182 subjects who underwent supervised, large-muscle group, endurance-type exercise training interventions with pre-/posttraining measures of flow-mediated dilation (FMD%) to assess artery function. All studies adopted an identical FMD protocol (5-min ischemia, distal cuff inflation), contemporary echo-Doppler methodology, and observer-independent automated analysis. Linear regression analysis was used to identify factors contributing to changes in FMD%. We found that cardiopulmonary fitness improved, and weight, body mass index (BMI), cholesterol, and mean arterial pressure (MAP) decreased after training, while FMD% increased in 76% of subjects (P < 0.001). Training-induced increase in FMD% was predicted by lower body weight (β = -0.212), lower baseline FMD% (β = -0.469), lower training frequency (β = -0.256), and longer training duration (β = 0.367) (combined: P < 0.001, r = 0.63). With the exception of a modest correlation with total cholesterol (r = -0.243, P < 0.01), changes in traditional cardiovascular risk factors were not significantly related to changes in FMD% (P > 0.05). In conclusion, we found that, while some subjects do not demonstrate increases following exercise training, improvement in FMD% is present in those with lower pretraining body weight and endothelial function. Moreover, exercise training-induced change in FMD% did not correlate with changes in traditional cardiovascular risk factors, indicating that some cardioprotective effects of exercise training are independent of improvement in risk factors.
Objectives Pre-eclampsia (PE) 4.4 (95% CI,). Moreover, in the formerly pre-eclamptic group, prehypertension was associated significantly with 4.3 (95% CI,
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