Croatian medical journal
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Croatian medical journal · Oct 2001
Early administration of inhaled nitric oxide to children with acute respiratory distress syndrome and its effects on oxygenation and ventilator settings: prospective preliminary report of ten patients.
To establish a protocol for the early introduction of inhaled nitric oxide (iNO) therapy in children with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and to assess its acute and sustained effects on oxygenation and ventilator settings. ⋯ Administration of iNO to children is safe. iNO causes rapid and sustained improvement in oxygenation without adverse effects. Ventilator settings can safely be reduced during iNO treatment.
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Croatian medical journal · Oct 2001
Comparative StudyIntermediate rehabilitation outcome in below-knee amputations: descriptive study comparing war-related with other causes of amputation.
To asses the intermediate rehabilitation outcome of patients with war-related below-knee amputations and compare it with the patients with other causes of amputation. ⋯ Early physical rehabilitation and replacement of the lost extremity with a preliminary prosthesis is an optimal intervention in below-knee amputations due to war-injury. Special attention should be paid to the psychological support to these patients during rehabilitation therapy.
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Croatian medical journal · Oct 2001
Appointment of statistical editor and quality of statistics in a small medical journal.
To test if the appointment of a statistical editor improves the quality of manuscripts published in a small general medical journal. ⋯ Appointment of a statistical editor is not a guarantee of improvement of statistics in small journals. Other measures are necessary, including strict editorial policy on statistical review, monitoring of revised manuscript versions, and enrollment of formally trained biostatisticians.
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Down syndrome, as a phenotypic result of trisomy 21, is a complex condition with a set of over 30 phenotypic features, which manifest themselves with varying frequencies among affected individuals. The importance for molecular medicine of understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying Down syndrome becomes fully appreciated when a striking feature of Down syndrome is taken into account: that the overdose of otherwise perfectly normal genes causes disorders of human health, indistinguishable from major public health problems of the general population, such as mandatory early onset Alzheimer s degeneration, increased risk of leukemia, and protection from cancer of solid tissues. The DNA sequence of human chromosome 21 is, at the moment, the most complete piece of DNA sequence known in the whole of human genome. The challenge for the future is an integrated, multidisciplinary approach to the molecular biology of chromosome 21 genes, in conjunction with the research into the variation in their genotype, expression, and function in the normal population, in Down syndrome individuals with well-characterized phenotypic traits, and in euploid patients suffering from diseases associated with phenotypic components of Down syndrome: mental retardation, developmental defects, hematological and solid tissue malignancies, and Alzheimer s disease.
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Gene therapy of cancer has become a major interest of medical research since more than 60% of the ongoing gene therapy protocols today involve cancer patients. To increase the therapeutic index of cancer gene therapy, targeting strategies have been developed to ensure that the expression of therapeutic genes is restricted exclusively to the tissue of interest. ⋯ The choice of these tumor types relies on their clinical impact, ie, morbidity and mortality, the lack of effective conventional therapeutic strategies, and the ability of these tumors to express tissue/tumor-specific genes, whose transcriptional control elements (enhancer/promoter) may be used for achieving selective transgene expression. Here we report our clinical and preclinical experience in gene therapy of brain and thyroid tumors, and review the literature published on this topic.