Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0042373 (vascular disease)
 17,070 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

This investigation was undertaken to study clinical usefulness of scatter and attenuation correction (SAC) of brain SPECT in infants to compare the standard reconstruction (STD). The brain SPECT was performed in 31 patients with 19 epilepsy, 5 cerebro-vascular disease, 2 brain tumor, 3 meningitis, 1 hydrocephalus and psychosis (mean age 5.0 +/- 4.9 years old). Many patients was necessary to be injected sedatives for restraining body motion after Technetium-99m hexamethylpropylene amine oxime (99mTc-HMPAO) was injected at the convulsion or rest. Brain SPECT data were acquired with triple detector gamma camera (GCA-9300 Toshiba Japan). These data were reconstructed by filtered backprojection after the raw data were corrected by triple energy windows method of scatter correction and Chang filtered method of attenuation correction. The same data was reconstructed by filtered backprojection without these corrections. Both SAC and STD SPECT images were analyzed by the visual interpretation. The uptake ratio of cerebral basal nuclei was calculated by the counts of the thalamus or lenticular nuclei divided by the cortex. All images of SAC method were excellent than that of STD method. The thalamic uptake ratio in SAC method was higher than that of STD method (1.22 +/- 0.09 > 0.87 +/- 0.22 p < 0.01). The lenticular nuclear uptake ratio in SAC method was higher than that of STD method (1.26 +/- 0.15 > 1.02 +/- 0.16 p < 0.01). Transmission scan is the most suitable method of absorption correction. But the transmission scan is not adequate for examination of children, because this scan needs a lot of time and the infants are exposed by the line source radioisotope. It was concluded that these scatter and absorption corrections were most suitable method for brain SPECT in pediatrics.
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PMID:[Clinical usefulness of scatter and attenuation correction for brain single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) in pediatrics]. 954 78

The etiology of giant cell arteritis and polymyalgia rheumatica remains unknown, although the HLA-DR4 group and the pre-existence of a degenerative vascular disease are confirmed risk factors. The incidence may vary between countries, but the North-South gradient should be considered with caution because of potential detection and collection bias. Infectious trigger factors have been looked for both at the epidemiological and biological level: annual, cyclic variations of incidence have been shown in Minnesota, seasonal variations in Scotland, France or Israel. The pre-existence of clinical, mainly respiratory, infection has been suggested in one study, but not confirmed afterwards. Simultaneous occurrence of peaks of GCA/PMR and respiratory infections have been observed in Denmark. Several viruses have been suspected as triggers and assessed by serological testing, PCR or immunostaining on temporal artery biopsies, or both techniques: the hepatitis B virus can be ruled out, as well as Herpes simplex 1 and 2, Herpes varicellae, Epstein-Barr virus and cytomegalovirus. Recent studies focused on parainfluenza virus, Parvovirus B19 and Chlamydia pneumoniae. Immunological studies suggest, at the origin of the inflammatory reaction leading to the typical pathological features of giant cell arteritis, the existence of a triggering antigen of unknown nature activating T-cells in the artery wall.
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PMID:Is giant cell arteritis an infectious disease? Biological and epidemiological evidence. 1561 51