Medical Inspection – Health Blog

Laboratory studies: For each patient, all blood samples were collected into vacutainer glass tubes (Becton Dickinson, Franklin, New Jersey) by a laboratory technologist without knowledge of the patient’s clinical history, investigation re­sults or diagnosis. Blood was also obtained for hematological studies (hemoglobin, white blood cell count and platelet count), erythrocyte sedimentation rate, antinuclear antibod­ies, liver [...]

Patient groups: Each patient had an established diagnosis of idiopathic ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease in the small and/or large intestine based on clinical, radiological, endo- scopic and histological criteria, and negative microbiological studies. Ulcerative colitis was diagnosed when a diffuse inflammatory process involving the rectum and extending proximally within the colon was present. As [...]

Previous studies have demonstrated that some anti­neutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibodies (ANCA) may be detected in patients with inflammatory bowel disorders, par­ticularly in those with ulcerative colitis. Recently, in a prospective study of 500 Canadian patients with inflamma­tory bowel disease (IBD) who were evaluated at the Univer­sity of British Columbia, 38.8% were positive for ANCA – 66.3% [...]

Bisphosphonates are currently regarded as the treatment of choice and the only realistic therapeutic option, but in the near future other therapies (for example, anti-RANKL agents) may become available. Here we discuss the individual compounds, considering the evidence of their efficacy and the most com­monly used therapeutic regimens. With the sole exception of etidronate, the [...]

The primary objective of Paget’s disease treatment is the relief of symptoms, and the new bisphosphonates are the agents most likely to relieve the aches and pain, excessive warmth over affected bone, headache due to skull involvement, low- back pain secondary to pagetic vertebral changes, and effects of nerve compression associated with the condition. Even [...]

Introduction The treatment of Paget’s disease of bone (Paget’s disease) is based on the use of agents capable of suppressing the abnor­mal activity of pagetic osteoclasts. Paget’s disease was an un- treatable condition until the mid-1970s when calcitonin became available and was registered in most countries for the treatment of the disease. Calcitonin was administered [...]

In the great majority of patients with Paget’s disease the diag­nosis is made by X-ray evaluation of the affected region(s) of the skeleton. Although the lesions may be complex, comprised of osteolytic, osteosclerotic and/or mixed abnormalities, experi­enced evaluators of bone usually have little difficulty in distin­guishing the characteristics of Paget’s disease from other dis­orders. Occasionally [...]