The American journal of the medical sciences
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Gastroparesis is a disorder where the stomach empties contents too slowly into the small intestine with associated symptoms of nausea, vomiting, postprandial fullness, bloating, early satiety and/or abdominal pain. It is a well-established fact that the female gender is more susceptible to developing gastroparesis compared to males, although the significance and rationale behind this gender inequality remains an unresolved mystery. Several hypotheses have been proposed including an intrinsically slower stomach in females, elevated levels of sex steroid hormones, loss of neuronal nitric oxide (nNOS) expression, and possibly due to altered serotonergic signaling. ⋯ Targeting these gender-specific mechanisms may lead towards future therapeutic options that might alleviate and/or prevent gastroparesis. Furthermore, a better-understanding of the sex-related differences in gastroparesis can allow medical practitioners to better tailor treatment options for their patients. This article will attempt to explain why females are more vulnerable to developing gastroparesis by examining the pathogenesis and molecular basis of gender-related factors that have been identified to play a role in the gender disparity of this entity.
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Review
The Management of Women's Health Care by Internists With a Focus on the Utility of Ultrasound.
Adult women require routine care for the acute and chronic health problems found in both sexes, and they require specialized care for women's health problems, including disease prevention, disease screening, and disease management. Internists should direct primary care and participate in specialized care and to the extent possible follow guidelines published by various professional organizations. They should understand the use of ultrasound in breast cancer screening, the management of pregnancy, and other gynecologic problems, including vaginal bleeding, pelvic pain, and investigation for pelvic malignancy. Finally, all management decisions need discussions on the potential benefit or harm in each step of a woman's care with an emphasis on personal preferences.
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The aim of this study was to compute the event rate of patients with breast cancer (BC) using Bayesian network (BN) structure. ⋯ The BN structure in which time was as a mediator of predictors-event relationship could be presented as the optimal tool to compute the event rate of BC. The findings could be used to identify the high risk patients and recommend for health policy making, prevention and planning for decrease the mortality in patients with BC.