Straube, c [author]

BACKGROUND: Pain is very common in patients with cancer. Opioid analgesics, including codeine, play a significant role in major guidelines on the management of cancer pain, particularly for mild to moderate pain. Codeine is widely available and inexpensive, which may make it a good choice, especially in low-resource settings. Its use is controversial, in part because codeine is not effective in a minority of patients who cannot convert it to its active metabolite (morphine), and also because of concerns about potential abuse, and safety in children...

Sorafenib is a multikinase inhibitor that displays antiproliferative and antiangiogenic properties in the treatment of solid tumors. Commonly administered for the treatment of metastatic or unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma and advanced renal cell carcinoma, sorafenib has demonstrated remarkable survival benefits for those where curative surgery is not an option. Although generally having a mild side effect profile, sorafenib has been linked to a variety of dermatologic disorders, including most commonly acneiform rash, hand-foot-skin reactions, facial erythema, splinter subungual hemorrhages, alopecia or pruritus...

INTRODUCTION: Sotrastaurin is an immunosuppressant that inhibits protein kinase C and blocks T-lymphocyte activation. The authors determined the effect of combining sotrastaurin with the calcineurin inhibitor cyclosporine on the pharmacokinetics and biomarker responses to both drugs. METHODS: This was a randomized, 4-period, crossover study in 20 healthy subjects who received single oral doses of (1) sotrastaurin 100 mg, (2) cyclosporine 400 mg, (3) 100 mg sotrastaurin with 100 mg cyclosporine and (4) 100 mg sotrastaurin with 400 mg cyclosporine...

The authors examined life-span differences in the maintenance of skilled episodic memory performance by assessing 100 individuals (10 -11, 12-13, 21-26, and 66-79 years old) 11 months after termination of an intensive multisession mnemonic training program (Y. Brehmer, S.-C. Li, V. Müller, T. von Oertzen, & U. Lindenberger, 2007). Skill maintenance was tested in 2 follow-up sessions, the first without and the second with mnemonic reinstruction. Younger and older adults' average performance levels were stable across time...

BACKGROUND: Minicore myopathy (multi-minicore disease [MmD]) is a congenital myopathy characterized by multifocal areas with loss of oxidative activity on muscle biopsy. MmD is clinically heterogeneous and distinct phenotypes have been associated with recessive mutations in either the selenoprotein N (SEPN1) or the skeletal muscle ryanodine receptor (RYR1) gene, also implicated in central core disease and malignant hyperthermia. External ophthalmoplegia is an additional finding in a subset of patients with MmD...

Using MRI and voxel-based morphometry, the authors investigated 20 patients with chronic tension type headache (CTTH) and 20 patients with medication-overuse headache and compared them to 40 controls with no headache history. Only patients with CTTH demonstrated a significant gray matter decrease in regions known to be involved in pain processing. The finding implies that the alterations are specific to CTTH rather than a response to chronic head pain or chronification per se.

Cardiovascular disease is rare in premenopausal women compared to men. The authors investigate sex hormone-induced endothelin-1 (ET-1) release and the involvement of classic sex hormone receptors as well as the ability of sigma-1/cocaine receptors to respond to sex hormones. ET-1 release was measured in the supernatant of endothelial cells after treatment with beta-estradiol, progesterone, testosterone, or combined with their antagonists, and with the sigma-1 receptor ligand ditolylguanidine (DTG), or haloperidol, a sigma-1 receptor antagonist...

The samples from the proximal femora were taken from 12 cementeries from the Roman period. The skeletons date from the 1st-4th centuries A.D. Trace element analysis was used in order to reconstruct the basic diet. The sites that best corresponded to the model of Old Germanic diet described by ancient authors "meat, milk and cheese" were found in the Pruszcz Gdanski East Pomerania region close to the Baltic sea as well as in region Halle (Niemberg) and not far from Donau (Sládkovicovo). This diet is characterized by a large amount of protein and consequently of zinc...

Symptomatic aseptic, chemical meningitis is a rare complication of myelography. Its acute clinical course and standard laboratory findings are indistinguishable from those of bacterial meningitis. The authors present a case of severe postmyelographic chemical meningitis and compare CSF and serum inflammatory markers to a group of seven patients with proven bacterial meningitis. As in viral meningitis, procalcitonin might be able to discriminate between bacterial and chemical causes of CNS inflammation.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the spectrum and frequency of neurologic sequelae after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT) and to define a risk profile of the patients. METHODS: A prospective follow-up of 71 allogeneic bone marrow recipients 14 +/- 3 months after transplantation. Patients underwent a neurologic examination, a neuropsychological test battery, and cranial MRI before and after BMT. RESULTS: A large proportion of patients (65%) developed sequelae after BMT...

BACKGROUND: The further course of prostate cancer (PC) after radical prostatectomy (RPX) is decisively influenced by the local tumor stage. Although it is thus far possible to assess the risk of local recurrence from the pathohistology, precise predictions cannot be made. A more precise evaluation would be desirable, mainly for early planning of adjuvant therapy. Other authors have shown that telomerase activity may be a marker for malignant potential. We assessed the detection of telomerase activity using the telomeric repeat amplification protocol (TRAP) in surgical margins compared to conventional histopathological examination...

Neurologic manifestation of graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT) has until now been limited to rare neuromuscular syndromes. Investigating cerebral findings using a murine BMT model, the authors found parenchymal lymphocytic inflammation, microglia activation, and mild cerebral angiitis-like changes in allogeneic transplanted animals but not in syngeneic controls. These findings suggest that cerebral involvement during GvHD may be a new neurologic complication after BMT...

OBJECTIVE: The deficit syndrome is a subtype of schizophrenia characterized by primary and enduring negative features of psychopathology. It appears to reflect a distinct subtype within the syndrome of schizophrenia. Little is known about the familial or genetic aspects of the deficit syndrome. The purpose of this study was to determine whether deficit versus nondeficit subtypes are correlated in sibling pairs affected with schizophrenia. METHOD: The present study was based on the Irish Study of High-Density Schizophrenia Families...

OBJECTIVE: Schizophrenia is clinically heterogeneous. Recent linkage studies suggest that multiple genes are important in the etiology of schizophrenia. The authors examined the hypothesis of whether the clinical variability in schizophrenia is due to genetic heterogeneity. METHOD: Using data from the Irish Study of High-Density Schizophrenia Families (N=265 pedigrees; N=1,408 individuals), the authors attempted to predict, from major symptoms and signs of psychosis, evidence for linkage within families for schizophrenia-related disorders to chromosomal regions 5q21-5q31, 6p24-6p22, 8p22-8p21, and 10p15-10p11...

Guidelines are efficient tools for the maintenance and improvement of the quality of care and contribute to the increase of the efficacy of care. However, the quality of guidelines has not been investigated or improved much in Germany. This is especially true for the formal assessment of guidelines regarding the collection and evaluation of evidence, their feasibility and their effects on health economy. There is an internationally recognized method available to examine and evaluate current and new guidelines with respect to these three categories...

In this article, the authors discussed the successful evaluation of an orientation system for newly employed registered nurses in a large teaching hospital using the IOP model. This methodology can be successfully applied to any educational program that is consolidated into an organization's goals. Although not well examined, orientation has been reported to be costly (Bethel, 1992; del Bueno, Weeks, Brown-Stewart, 1987). The system presently used at this hospital uses at least 1 week of a nurse educator's time, 3-10 weeks for a newly employed registered nurse, and 3-10 weeks for a preceptor RN...

Since there is no nationwide system and documentation of congenital malformations in Germany, local health authorities were not able to respond to the question of an increase in limb reduction defects occurring on the coast of Northern Germany. Previously, such an increase had been reported by the media in England in 1994. For limb reduction defects, the feasibility and efficiency of the so-called "Magdeburg-model" for monitoring congenital malformations is demonstrated. This model provides data on reduction defects for analysing regional (Magdeburg versus Magdeburg county) and temporal trends, and for classifying reduction defects...

OBJECTIVE: The authors sought to determine whether the clinical manifestations of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders are correlated in affected sibling pairs. METHOD: They examined, in 256 sibling pairs concordant for DSM-III-R schizophrenia and 457 sibling pairs concordant for all nonaffective psychoses ascertained in the Irish Study of High-Density Schizophrenia Families, similarity for 1) symptoms, course, and outcome; 2) symptom factors; and 3) syndromes, defined by latent class analysis...

Manuel Straub was one of the forefathers of Dutch ophthalmology and is well known for his early work on phacogenic uveitis and refraction. In this historical account of the rise of ophthalmology in the Netherlands, the author traces Straub's significant role and reflects on how his own fate became inextricably linked with Straub and other illustrious Dutch ophthalmologists, such as W.P.C. Zeeman, Otto Roelofs, and Arend Hagedoorn.

UNLABELLED: The etiology of anaemia associated with tumours is multifactorial. One of the mechanisms of development of anaemia in tumours are so-called chronic diseases anaemias, the main feature of which is inadequate production of endogenous erythropoietin (EPO). The objective of the investigation was to test the effect of recombinant human erythropoietin (rHuEPO) in the treatment of anaemia (rise of haematocrit, Hb) in patients with chronic lymphatic leukaemia (CLL) and multiple myeloma (MM) and the effect of this treatment on the quality of life...