Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0020538 (hypertension)
 170,190 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Reports on the association of papillary thyroid carcinoma with paraganglionic or desmoid tumors have appeared infrequently. The former setting usually affects middle-aged females; the latter is typical of familial adenomatous polyposis. We report the case of a 69-yr-old man in whom two abdominal masses had been instrumentally detected following an access of abdominal pain. Save for a moderate hypertension, he was asymptomatic and an impalpable thyroid nodule was detected by ultrasonography. A high urinary noradrenaline output and cytology of the masses raised the suspicion of pheochromocytoma. At laparotomy, an adrenal pheochromocytoma and a paracaval paraganglioma were excised. Subsequently, hemithyroidectomy was performed, and histopathology revealed papillary microcarcinoma. A nodule of desmoid tumor was also removed from the abdominal wall. An analysis of RET, APC, and TP53 gene mutations, and of RET and NTRK1 gene rearrangements, yielded negative results. No in vitro transforming activity was detected in the tumor DNA when assayed in transfection experiments. The lack of a consistent family history also made unlikely the possibility of identifying the putative germline defect by linkage analyses. Should this unusual aggregation of tumors represent a new entity, a number of genetic alterations have now been excluded.
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PMID:Concurrent Pheochromocytoma, Paraganglioma, Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma, and Desmoid Tumor: A Case Report with Analyses at the Molecular Level. 1211 65

Acute myocardial infarction is a very rare event during pregnancy and bears the problem of misdiagnosis. However, about 150 cases have been published worldwide with a preponderance of anterior wall infarcts. With more women delaying childbearing until an older age and increasing prevalence of smoking in young women, it can be expected that all forms of coronary artery disease--including acute myocardial infarction--will be seen more often in the future. Among the causes of coronary artery occlusion in pregnancy are (1) rupture of very small coronary artery plaques triggered by different events, e.g., hypertension; (2) plain coronary artery disease; (3) dissection of coronary arteries; (4) coronary artery spasms with/without arterial thrombosis. Prompt diagnosis and immediate therapy are necessary to lower the high mortality of mother and fetus. The gold standard in the therapy of acute myocardial infarction during pregnancy is immediate coronary angiography and percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) with or without stent implantation. Application of thrombolytics (recombinant tissue plasminogen activator [rt-PA], r-PA, streptokinase [SK], urokinase [UK]) has been reported in single patients but should be limited to cases where acute PTCA is not available and where the infarct occurs before the 14th week of pregnancy because of possible embryopathy. If the patient is in the last 10 weeks of pregnancy, anticipation of delivery should be part of the medical planning. Consultation with an obstetrician must be obtained as soon as the patient enters the hospital. Besides bleeding complications, venous thrombosis with pulmonary embolism is among the most common causes of death during pregnancy. Pregnancy-related changes in physiology - increase in the resistance to flow from the lower extremities to the heart - and congenital coagulation abnormalities are most important to be recognized. This leads to the fact that superficial and deep venous thromboses occur more often in pregnancy than in the nonpregnant state. Among the coagulation abnormalities found in pregnancy are hypercoagulability (increased levels of fibrinogen, factor VII, factor VIII, factor X), decreased fibrinolytic activity due to an increased level of plasminogen activator inhibitor, increased adhesion and aggregation of platelets, decreased level of protein C and of the APC (activated protein C) ratio. Individual risks factors justifying diagnostic screening include contraception, smoking, immobilization, infection, adiposity, placental insufficiency, and a family history of thrombosis. It is even more important to establish/rule out the diagnosis of thrombosis in pregnancy than in the nonpregnant state, because the use of anticoagulants carries certain risks during pregnancy. Doppler vein studies should be used for diagnosis. If necessary, venography may be used with shielding of the maternal abdomen. Therapy consists of subcutaneous application of heparin, compression, and early mobilization. Alternatively, especially for long-term management, treatment with low molecular weight heparins is feasible. Thrombolytic treatment is contraindicated in most cases due to the high risk of bleeding complications. However, the application of thrombolytics can be contemplated in single cases after careful consideration of the pros and cons. Most cases of pulmonary embolism should also be handled conservatively with heparin. Only in massive pulmonary embolism with severe hemodynamic compromise, thrombolytic treatment is indicated. To guide future therapy in the patients, it is necessary to establish the lifetime risk of recurrent events by determining: APC resistance, prothrombin mutation 20210 A, homocysteine, AT III, protein C and S, antiphospholipid antibodies, and anticardiolipin antibodies.
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PMID:[Myocardial infarction and thromboembolism during pregnancy]. 1275 75

The resistance to activated protein C (APC-resistance) based on the presence of factor V Leiden (F V Leiden) is the most frequent thrombophilic condition in the white race population. It contributes to the origin of thrombosis especially in the venous part of blood vessels. Significant geographic differences have been detected within Europe. The aim of this retrospective study was to determine the frequency in the occurrence of F V Leiden: 1. in healthy (asymptomatic) Slovak population, 2. in their consanguineously unrelated members with thrombosis and 3. in patients with myocardial infarction (IM) without or with other known risk factors of this disease (nicotinism, obesity, hypertension, dyslipoproteinemia, diabetes mellitus), respectively. The detection of FV Leiden was made by molecular biology methods. The occurrence in a group of 152 healthy individuals was four % (6 persons) and this frequency corresponds to the geographic localization of the Slovak Republic in Europe. In a group of 349 patients with thrombosis in anamnesis, FV Leiden was detected in 103 persons (29.5%). The occurrence was higher than the usually reported incidence in these patients (20%). Likewise, in a group of 35 patients with IM without risk factors in anamnesis, the occurrence of FV Leiden (8.6%) was significantly higher in comparison with healthy population and the incidence further increased significantly in a group of 41 patients with IM and the presence of at least one risk factor (14.6%). The authors therefore suppose an active role of the Leiden mutation of FV gene in the pathogenesis of this disease.
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PMID:[Factor V Leiden and the Slovak population]. 1468 80

Formerly, fewer than 1% of patients with hypertension were believed to have primary hyperaldosteronism; however, recent studies have suggested a higher prevalence, in 5% to 10% of patients with hypertension. Hypokalemia is not necessary for the diagnosis and is probably a sign of more advanced disease. The best diagnostic test is the plasma aldosterone concentration to plasma renin activity (PAC/PRA) ratio. Excess aldosterone level has a deleterious effect on the cardiovascular system. Aldosteronomas should be differentiated from idiopathic hyperaldosteronism (IHA),because they are curable by laparoscopic adrenalectomy.
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PMID:Clinical manifestation of aldosteronoma. 1514 41

In acute hypotension, an automated drug infusion system to control mean arterial blood pressure (MAP) has not been previously studied, though many investigations have examined the use of vasodilating drugs to control MAP in postoperative hypertension. Therefore, we examined an automated control of MAP during acute hypotension using a neural network (NN) approach. A proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control, an adaptive predictive control using a NN (APC(NN)), a combined control of APC(NN) and PID (APC(NN-PID)), a fuzzy control, and a model predictive control were tested in computer simulation based on the MAP response to norepinephrine (NE) of 25 microg ml(-1). In six anesthetized rabbits, using the NE of 25 microg ml(-1), the PID control, APC(NN), and APC(NN-PID) prevented severe hypotension compared to an uncontrolled condition. Under PID control, four of the six animals showed MAP oscillation. Using NE of 50 microg ml(-1), the rabbits recovered from acute hypotension for all systems tested but showed sustained MAP oscillation during PID control. In conclusion, utilization of a NN for adaptive predictive control systems could facilitate the development of an automated drug infusion apparatus because it provides robust control even when acute or large perturbations and inter-individual differences in the sensitivity to therapeutic agents occur.
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PMID:Adaptive predictive control of arterial blood pressure based on a neural network during acute hypotension. 1553 55

Angiogenesis, a complex, coordinated process resulting in the assembly and maturation of new blood vessels, is critical for the growth of tumors. Several lines of evidence argue for angiogenesis inhibition in the treatment of colorectal cancer (CRC) : 1) angiogenesis (as measured by microvessel count), and the expression of pro-angiogenesis factors, such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), the key regulator of normal and pathological angiogenesis, have been reported to correlate with advanced disease and a worse prognosis ; 2) the expression of VEGF has been shown to correlate with RAS mutations, alterations in the APC-WNT signaling pathway, and overexpression of cyclo-oxygenase-2, which all are frequent in CRC ; 3) bevacizumab, a humanized anti-VEGF monoclonal antibody, is a potent inhibitor of tumor growth of various CRC cell lines in murine xenografts ; 4) the addition of bevacizumab to systemic chemotherapy has been shown to be significantly superior to chemotherapy alone in terms of objective tumor response rate, progression-free survival, and overall survival in patients with metastatic CRC, in the frontline, and more recently in the second-line setting, without worsening of chemotherapy-related toxicity. However, several potential specific adverse events, such as thrombosis, hemorrhages, proteinuria, arterial hypertension, and bowel perforations have been described. Whether the antitumoral efficacy of bevacizumab could be increased when combined to low-dose (metronomic) chemotherapy, or radiotherapy (in rectal cancer), is under development, as well other VEGF-targeted approaches (e.g., dominantnegative mutants, antisense oligonucleotides, antibodies directed against VEGF receptors (VEGFR), VEGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors, soluble VEGFR,...), or other anti-angiogenesis agents (e.g., thalidomide, celecoxib, angiozyme...).
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PMID:[Therapeutic strategies using VEGF inhibitors in colorectal cancer]. 1638 67

Primary hyperaldosteronism is the most common secondary form of hypertension. Diagnosis of this entity is recommended in hypokalemic hypertension, in therapy-resistant hypertension (at least three 3 drugs and RR > 140/90 mmHg), and in adrenal incidentalomas (= incidentally discovered adrenal tumors). For screening, the ratio between plasma aldosterone (PAC) and plasma renin concentration (PRC) should be measured. In the assessment of PAC/PRC ratio, the discontinuation of some antihypertensive medication and assay-specific cutoff values must be noticed. After a positive screening test, saline infusion test should be done as confirmatory test. In contraindications/impracticability of this test, 24-h urine collection for aldosterone-18-glucuronide under high-sodium diet can be used as alternative confirmatory test. After confirmation of primary hyperaldosteronism, differential diagnosis between aldosterone-producing adenoma and idiopathic hyperaldosteronism has to be done. For this approach, adrenal CT or MRT, posture test and adrenal vein catheterization as gold standard test are available. Whereas therapy of aldosterone-producing adenoma is surgery, idiopathic hyperaldosteronism is to be treated medically by spironolactone.
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PMID:[Diagnosis of primary hyperaldosteronism]. 1722 47

Primary aldosteronism (PA) is the most common cause of mineralocorticoid hypertension. Different studies, using the plasma aldosterone concentration to plasma renin activity ratio (PAC/PRA) for the screening of patients with hypertension, have shown a marked increase in the detection rate of PA. Idiopathic bilateral adrenal hyperplasia (IHA) and aldosterone-producing adrenal adenoma (APA), are the leading causes of primary aldosteronism. Glucocorticoid-remediable aldosteronism (GRA), also called familial hyperaldosteronism type I, familial hyperaldosteronism type II and carcinomas are rare causes of PA. Patients with hypertension and hypokalemia, those with a family history of hypertension and stroke at an early age, or patients with medication-resistant hypertension should be screened for PA using the PAC/PRA ratio. If a high ratio is found, a sodium loading test or a captopril test is warranted to confirm the diagnosis. Adrenal gland imaging is important in subtype differentiation (APA vs IHA). Adrenal venous sampling should be used when other tests prove inconclusive. Genetic testing has facilitated detection of GRA. Surgery is considered the treatment of choice for patients with APA, while bilateral hyperplasia subtypes are treated medically. Normalization of aldosterone levels or aldosterone receptor blockade are necessary to prevent the morbidity and mortality associated with hypertension, hypokalemia, and cardiovascular damage.
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PMID:Detecting and treating primary aldosteronism: primary aldosteronism. 1742 5

Several small case-control studies have investigated whether factor V Leiden (FVL) is a risk factor for retinal vein occlusion (RVO) and generated conflicting data. To clarify this question we performed a large two-centre case-control study and a meta-analysis of published studies. Two hundred seven consecutive patients with RVO and a control group of 150 subjects were screened between 1996 and 2006. A systematic meta-analysis was done combining our study with further 17 published European case-control studies. APC resistance was detected in 16 out of 207 (7.7%) patients and eight out of 150 (5.3%) controls. The odds ratio (OR) estimated was 1.49 with a (non-significant) 95% confidence interval (CI) of 0.62-3.57. The meta-analysis including 18 studies with a total of 1,748 patients and 2,716 controls showed a significantly higher prevalence of FVL in patients with RVO compared to healthy controls (combined OR 1.66; 95% CI 1.19-2.32). All single studies combined in the meta-analysis were too small to reliably detect the effect individually. This explains the seemingly contradictory data in the literature. In conclusion, the prevalence of APC resistance (and FVL) is increased in patients with RVO compared to controls, but the effect is only moderate. Therefore, there is no indication for general screening of factor V mutation in all patients with RVO. We recommend this test to be performed in patients older than 50 years with an additional history of thromboembolic event and in younger patients without general risk factors like hypertension.
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PMID:The prevalence of activated protein C (APC) resistance and factor V Leiden is significantly higher in patients with retinal vein occlusion without general risk factors. Case-control study and meta-analysis. 1844 23

Occlusions of retinal veins (central and branch) represent multifactorialy-conditioned disease involving presumably older patients, in whom the changes of retinal vessels caused by hypertension and atherosclerosis present the most important pathophysiological factors for development of this disease. In last years, the intensive scientific research is focused to the explanation of the role of the defects of the coagulations cascade. Especially in younger patients, the most often mentioned defect of the coagulations cascade is called as APC-resistance. Up to 95% of all patients with APC-resistance are carriers of so called Leiden mutation. The aim of our study was to establish the prevalence of the ACP-resistance in 92 patients with central or branch occlusion of the retinal vein verified by means of angiography treated at the Department of Ophthalmology, Faculty Hospital, Olomouc, Czech Republic, EU, during the period 1999-2005. The control group consisted of 40 patients without any vascular, eye-related disease. In the group of patients with occlusion of the retinal vein, the prevalence of the APC-resistance was 10.9% and in the control group 5%. In the group of patients 55 years old and younger the prevalence of the ACP-resistance was 14.3%, in patients older than 55 years it was 5.6%. According to the relatively small groups of patients, the established difference did not reach the level of statistical evidence. Results of our study confirmed the conclusions of previously published papers that the prevalence of the APC-resistance is not significantly higher in patients with retinal vein occlusion according to the prevalence in controls.
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PMID:[Disturbances of the plasma coagulation defects in retinal venous occlusions]. 1863 Jan 61


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