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64–year–old man, from SriLanka, affected by arterial hypertension, complicated diabetes mellitus (retinopathy, vasculopathy, peripheral neuropathy) and chronic kidney injury in hemodialysis. Liver transplantation for hepatocarcinoma due to alcholic cirrhosis required cyclosporine as immunosuppressive agent. He also suffered from chronic multifactorial anemia and mild thrombocytopenia. Home therapy included atenolol 50mg, clonidine, lercanidipine, insulin, kayexalate, cyclosporine. He was admitted in ED for a chest pain during hemodialysis, associated with high blood pressure values and lateral ST–depression on ECG. Iv nitroglycerin relieved symtoms and normalized the repolarization. Echocardiogram showed a concentric ventricular hypertrophy, without wall motion changes or significant valvulopathy. Laboratory tests detected the known anemia, thrombocytopenia (Hb 9.6g/dl, PLT 100x109/L) and renal injury (creat 10mg/dl, K + 5.1mmol/L) with a stable rise of troponin T hs 80pg/ml (n.v.

At the Department of Physics of the University of Pisa, Italy, a new and fully engineered version of the YAP-(S)PET small animal scanner has been recently installed. The new YAP-(S)PET is able to perform both PET and SPECT studies on small animals. The scanner is made up of four heads: each one is composed of a 4/spl times/4 cm/sup 2/ YAlO/sub 3/:Ce (or YAP:Ce) matrix of 20/spl times/20 elements, 2/spl times/2/spl times/25 mm/sup 3/ each, coupled to a Position Sensitive Photomultiplier (PS-PMT) (Hamamatsu R2486). The four modules are positioned on a rotating gantry. The switching to the SPECT modality is easily made by mounting a high resolution parallel hole (0.6 mm O, 0.15 mm septum) lead collimator in front of each crystal. This paper reports the performance of the system in terms of absolute sensitivity and spatial resolution for both PET and SPECT modalities. The scatter fraction and noise-equivalent count rate (NEC) for a mouse phantom for different energy windows have been measured in PET modality. Images of phantoms and animals are also presented.

We are developing a positron emission mammograph imaging system that consists of 2 planar heads (10 � 10 cm 2 ), each composed of 4 matrices (5 � 5c m 2 ) of scintillating crystals coupled to the same number of multi-anode PMT (Hamamatsu H8500). We are developing a readout scheme which handles the 4 � 64 output signals of each head. We are primarily interested in charge multiplexed readout schemes. The measurements presented in this paper highlight the limits of a multiplexed readout using a discretized positioning circuit (DPC) by comparison with results using either another multiplexed scheme based on symmetric charge division (SCD) or a multi-anode readout. The measurements have been performed with the H8500 PMT coupled to pixelated NaI(Tl) and YAP crystals.

Potassium channel openers hyperpolarize the smooth muscle cell membrane and relax airway smooth muscle. In this study, pre- and postjunctional effects of pinacidil ((+/-) N-cyano-N'-(4-pyridil)-N"-(1,2,2-trimethylpropyl)-guanidine monohydrated), an adenosine triphosphate (ATP)-sensitive K(+)-channel opener, were determined in isolated bovine trachealis. The effects of pinacidil on the frequency-response to electrical field stimulation (EFS), 0.1-32 Hz, and on the concentration response to acetylcholine (ACh), 10(9)-10(-4) M, were compared in muscle strips from six animals. In addition, the effect of pinacidil on the inhibitory nonadrenergic noncholinergic (iNANC) system was evaluated in histamine-contracted muscle strips from another eight animals. Pinacidil (10(-6) or 10(-5) M) shifted both the EFS frequency-response and the ACh concentration-response curves significantly (p < 0.01) to the right. Glibenclamide (10(-7)-10(-5) M) antagonized these responses in a concentration-dependent manner. The inhibitory effects of pinacidil on contractions of the same magnitude induced by EFS or exogenous ACh were not significantly different (p = 0.11), suggesting that pinacidil had only a postjunctional effect. Pinacidil had no effect on iNANC-mediated muscle relaxation. We conclude that pinacidil attenuates the contraction of isolated bovine tracheal smooth muscle by postjunctional mechanisms.

Allergen bronchial provocation tests (BPTs) are often used for assessment of treatment efficacy. Usually, the allergen dose provoking a 20% fall of forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) (PD20) is determined on a prestudy day, and this single dose is administered for comparisons on study days. The inhalation of allergen may cause both an isolated early asthmatic response (EAR) or, more frequently, an EAR followed by a late asthmatic response (LAR). Whether the method used to elicit EAR, i.e. the inhalation of cumulative doses up to PD20 or the inhalation of a single predetermined PD20, give comparable results has not been established. We have, therefore, compared the results obtained using the two methods. Twelve patients underwent a first BPT with the increasing doses method and a second BPT with a single dose method. EAR, LAR, and allergen-induced increase of methacholine (MCh) sensitivity were compared. Both methods gave similar EAR's and LAR's although EAR tended to be more severe with the increasing dose method than with the single dose method. The ratio of postallergen/preallergen MCh sensitivity was poorly reproducible.

At the Department of Physics of the University of Pisa, a new and fully engineered version of the YAP-(S)PET small animal scanner has been recently installed. The new YAP-(S)PET is able to perform both PET and SPECT studies on small animals. The scanner is made up of four heads: each one is composed of a 4times4 cm2 YAlO3:Ce (or YAP:Ce) matrix of 20times20 elements, 2times2times25 mm3 each, coupled to a PS-PMT (Hamamatsu R2486). The four modules are positioned on a rotating gantry. The switching to the SPECT modality is easily made by mounting a high resolution parallel hole (0.6 mm Phi, 0.15 mm septum) lead collimator in front of each crystal. This paper reports the performance of the system in terms] of absolute sensitivity and spatial resolution for both PET and SPECT modalities. The scatter fraction and noise-equivalent count rate (NEC) for a mouse phantom for different energy windows have been measured. Images of phantoms and animals are also presented