Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0700208 (scoliosis)
 8,574 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Many elderly people complain dizziness which may continue occasionally for months or years. According to epidemiological studies, 25-29% of subjects with more than 60 years of age have the experience of dizziness. Dizziness occurs most commonly during head positional changes or walking. Clinical studies have indicated that causes of dizziness are nonspecific and multi-factorial; cerebrovascular diseases, cervical spondylosis, depressive state, poor vision, orthostatic hypotension, whiplash injury, or low cerebrospinal fluid syndrome may play a role in the development of dizziness. Patients with dizziness commonly have neck/shoulder pain, insomnia, left-right imbalance of visual acuity, scoliosis, white matter lesions on head MRI. Little, however, has yet been known as to how these symptoms and radiological findings are related to mechanisms of dizziness. During the last several years, we performed cerebral functional studies using auditory-evoked magneto-encephalography (MEG) in elderly people with chronic dizziness. Two types of functional abnormalities were found in dizziness patients. One is a rotational abnormality of MEG signals at the temporal cortex (Type A) which can be detected by current arrow mapping analysis. This abnormality is similar to that detected by non-evoked MEG in temporal lobe epilepsy patients. In patients with Type A abnormality, administration of anticonvulsants brought about dramatic improvement of dizziness in association with disappearance of rotational abnormalities. The other is abnormal prolongation of interhemispheric neural conduction time (INCT) between the left and right temporal cortices (Type B) which can be estimated from the difference of left and right N100 m peak latencies. The INCT was found to be prolonged correlating with the grade of white matter lesions on MRI. The INCT also seems to be prolonged by lack of sleep. Patients with Type B abnormality commonly have the asymmetry of body, such as left-right imbalance of visual acuity, left-right neck pain, or remarkable scoliosis, in association with insomnia and/or depressive state. According to the study of Penfield, dizziness or vertigo is manifested by stimulation of upper temporal cortex and lower parietal cortex. Mechanisms of dizziness can be hypothecated on the basis of MEG findings as follows: Presumably, there are head-position recognizing (HPR) centers in the left and right cerebral hemispheres. The HPR centers may correspond to the vestibular cortex or the combined system of vestibular, visual and somatosensory cortices. The HPR centers in two hemispheres are receiving head-position signals from vestibular, visual and somatosensory corices and are readjusting the dissociation of information which may exist between each other through rapid interhemispheric neural conduction. In patients with Type A abnormality, dizziness may be caused by abnormal neuronal excitements in left or right HPR center. In patients with Type B abnormalities, dizziness may be caused by the combined factors, one the abnormal prolongation of INCT between left and right HPR centers and the other the large dissociation of head position signals between the left and right HPR centers due to the body asymmetry, such as scoliosis or left-right neck pain imbalance.
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PMID:[Chronic dizziness in elderly people: its clinical characteristics and magneto-encephalographic findings]. 1861 49

Nevus comedonicus is an uncommon skin abnormality characterized by an aggregation of dilated follicular orifices filled with keratinous material. Nevus comedonicus is occasionally complicated with other conditions including cataracts, skeletal defects, central nervous system abnormalities or other extra-cutaneous diseases (nevus comedonicus syndrome). Although most cases of nevus comedonicus occur unilaterally on the face, neck and chest, the lesions occasionally show a bilateral distribution (bilateral nevus comedonicus). We report here an unusual case of bilaterally disseminated nevus comedonicus with various systemic complications. A 62-year-old Japanese man presented with a 50-year history of numerous keratotic papules and comedo-like lesions, which gradually worsened with time. Physical examination revealed that the papules were skin-colored and 1-4 mm in diameter. Some papules had dark-black keratinous materials on their surface, giving them a comedo-like appearance. The lesions were located predominantly on the face, head, neck and trunk with symmetric distribution, following Blaschko's lines. The patient's past medical history was noteworthy; he had undergone surgical treatments for thyroid cancer, pneumothorax and schwannoma in the cauda equina. He also suffered from scoliosis, cervical spondylosis and atrial fibrillation. Histopathologic examination revealed dilated and invaginated follicular structures filled with lamellar keratin, compatible with nevus comedonicus. Our patient's case did not fit with any previously reported diseases, and we thought a diagnosis of "bilateral nevus comedonicus syndrome" was the most appropriate for our patient's condition. He was treated with topical retinoic acid and activated vitamin D3 ointment for 3 months each, but the lesions remained unchanged.
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PMID:Bilateral nevus comedonicus syndrome. 2403 Nov 54

Extracorporeal shock wave therapy (ESWT) is a non-invasive therapeutic method used for pain management and muscle strength improvement through the use of shock waves. In vitro studies have demonstrated that shockwave therapy induces fluctuation in redox reaction regulation and increases in Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase (MAPK) signal transduction pathways, stimulating increased gene expression in the nucleus. ESWT has also been shown to upregulate angiogenesis and growth factors through activation of endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). The use of ESWT in the treatment of various musculoskeletal disorders was widely adopted throughout Europe, South America, and Asia before being introduced in the United States in 2000. Within the past 20 years, the clinical application of ESWT in the treatment of musculoskeletal and bone disorders has grown. This paper provides a comprehensive narrative review of applications and outcomes of ESWT in clinical spinal pathology and assesses reported efficacy as it relates to the pathology. A review of the literature yielded studies describing the use of ESWT in degenerative osteoporotic neuro-spinal pathology, heterotopic ossification due to spinal cord injury, cervical spondylosis, scoliosis, sacroiliitis, and coccydynia. The efficacy of ESWT as an adjunct treatment in patients with spinal cord pathologies varied with the specific pathology, however, all pathologies discussed in this review provided evidence of potential benefits with minimal adverse effects. While the use of ESWT for pain management has widely been established, further literature should aim to identify the long-term benefits of ESWT.
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PMID:Enhanced Spinal Therapy: Extracorporeal Shock Wave Therapy for the Spine. 3326 31