The discrepancy between plasma 11-deoxycortisol and ACTH concentrations in a single dose metyrapone test in normal men

1982 ◽  
Vol 101 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-65
Author(s):  
Michihiro Matsuki ◽  
Seikoh Nishida ◽  
Masaharu Horino ◽  
Atsuko Tenku ◽  
Hideki Oyama

Abstract. A single dose metyrapone test (MTP test) was carried out on 6 normal men by administering 1.0 g of metyrapone at 08.00–09.00 h with and without dexamethasone (DXM-MTP test) pre-treatment. Plasma 11-deoxycortisol, pregnenolone, ACTH and cortisol were measured before administration of the drug, and at hourly intervals for 6 h. In the MTP test, 11-deoxycortisol increased significantly at 1 h with a peak at 5 h, whereas significant increases in pregnenolone and ACTH were not seen until 3 h. There was a definite decrease in the cortisol level at 1 h with the lowest level measured at 2 h. Thus, a time discrepancy between plasma 11-deoxycortisol and ACTH concentrations was observed. The increase in 11-deoxycortisol after metyrapone should be divided into two phases: the increase in phase II (after 3 h) is due to the pituitary ACTH reserve, and that in phase I (the first 2 h) is due to some mechanism other than the pituitary ACTH reserve. The increased amount of 11-deoxycortisol in phase II (218.1 nmol) occupied 60.5% of the total increased amount in phases I and II(360.6 nmol). The cortisol/(cortisol +11-deoxycortisol) ratio reached its lowest point 3 h after metyrapone treatment. This might be due to the initiation of an additional surge in 11-deoxycortisol by the ACTH reserve at 3 h.

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luciana Caravatta ◽  
Consuelo Rosa ◽  
Maria Bernadette Di Sciascio ◽  
Andrea Tavella Scaringi ◽  
Angelo Di Pilla ◽  
...  

Abstract Background COVID-19 in Italy has led to the need to reorganize hospital protocols with a significant risk of interruption to cancer treatment programs. In this report, we will focus on a management model covering the two phases of the COVID-19 emergency, namely lockdown-phase I and post-lockdown-phase II. Methods The following steps were taken in the two phases: workload during visits and radiotherapy planning, use of dedicated routes, measures for triage areas, management of suspected and positive COVID-19 cases, personal protective equipment, hospital environments and intra-institutional meetings and tumor board management. Due to the guidelines set out by the Ministry of Health, oncological follow-up visits were interrupted during the lockdown-phase I; consequently, we set about contacting patients by telephone, with laboratory and instrumental exams being viewed via telematics. During the post-lockdown-phase II, the oncological follow-up clinic reopened, with two shifts operating daily. Results By comparing our radiotherapy activity from March 9 to May 4 2019 with the same period in 2020 during full phase I of the COVID-19 emergency, similar results were achieved. First radiotherapy visits, Simulation Computed Tomography and Linear Accelerator treatments amounted to 123, 137 and 151 in 2019 compared with 121, 135 and 170 in 2020 respectively. There were no cases of COVID-19 positivity recorded either in patients or in healthcare professionals, who were all negative to the swab tests performed. Conclusion During both phases of the COVID-19 emergency, the planned model used in our own experience guaranteed both continuity in radiotherapy treatments whilst neither reducing workload nor interrupting treatment and, as such, it ensured the safety of cancer patients, hospital environments and staff.


Author(s):  
Juanjuan Luo ◽  
Huadong Ma ◽  
Dongqing Zhou

Abstract Similarity matrix has a significant effect on the performance of the spectral clustering, and how to determine the neighborhood in the similarity matrix effectively is one of its main difficulties. In this paper, a “divide and conquer” strategy is proposed to model the similarity matrix construction task by adopting Multiobjective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA). The whole procedure is divided into two phases, phase I aims to determine the nonzero entries of the similarity matrix, and Phase II aims to determine the value of the nonzero entries of the similarity matrix. In phase I, the main contribution is that we model the task as a biobjective dynamic optimization problem, which optimizes the diversity and the similarity at the same time. It makes each individual determine one nonzero entry for each sample, and the encoding length decreases to O(N) in contrast with the non-ensemble multiobjective spectral clustering. In addition, a specific initialization operator and diversity preservation strategy are proposed during this phase. In phase II, three ensemble strategies are designed to determine the value of the nonzero value of the similarity matrix. Furthermore, this Pareto ensemble framework is extended to semi-supervised clustering by transforming the semi-supervised information to constraints. In contrast with the previous multiobjective evolutionary-based spectral clustering algorithms, the proposed Pareto ensemble-based framework makes a balance between time cost and the clustering accuracy, which is demonstrated in the experiments section.


Drug Research ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 70 (04) ◽  
pp. 145-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viviana Noriega ◽  
Hugo F. Miranda ◽  
Juan Carlos Prieto ◽  
Ramón Sotomayor-Zárate ◽  
Fernando Sierralta

AbstractThere are different animal models to evaluate pain among them the formalin hind paw assay which is widely used since some of its events appear to be similar to the clinical pain of humans. The assay in which a dilute solution of formalin is injected into the dorsal hindpaw of a murine produces two ‘phases’ of pain behavior separated by a inactive period. The early phase (Phase I) is probably due to direct activation of nociceptors and the second phase (Phase II) is due to ongoing inflammatory input and central sensitization. Mice were used to determine the potency antinociceptive of piroxicam (1,3,10,and 30 mg/kg), parecoxib (0.3, 1,3,10 and 30 mg/kg), dexketoprofen (3,10,30 and 100 mg/kg) and ketoprofen (3,10,30 and 100 mg/kg). Dose-response for each NSAIDs were created before and after 5 mg/kg of L-NAME i.p. or 5 mg/kg i.p. of 7-nitroindazole. A least-squares linear regression analysis of the log dose–response curves allowed the calculation of the dose that produced 50% of antinociception (ED50) for each drug. The ED50 demonstrated the following rank order of potency, in the phase I: piroxicam > dexketoprofen > ketoprofen > parecoxib and in the phase II: piroxicam > ketoprofen > parecoxib > dexketoprofen. Pretreatment of the mice with L-NAME or 7-nitroindazol induced a significant increase of the analgesic power of the NSAIDs, with a significant reduction of the ED50. It is suggested that NO may be involved in both phases of the trial, which means that nitric oxide regulates the bioactivity of NSAIDs.


Author(s):  
Sreejith S. S. ◽  
Muthu Mathirajan

Reward and Recognition (R&R) should be given to employees in a timely manner, based on continuous evaluation of their performance. Success of an R&R process lies in clear and well defined criteria for continuous evaluation of employee performance. Often such criteria are decided by the organization with no input from the employees. The purpose of this paper is to use qualitative research methods to explore and identify the criteria to be used for continuous employee performance evaluation for R&R in Information Technology organizations, from the perspectives of software engineers (SEs) and project managers (PMs). Exploratory research was conducted in two phases. In Phase I, unstructured interviews are used to elicit information from 7 SEs. Caselets are prepared based on these interviews and 19 criteria are identified. In Phase II, the criteria identified in Phase I are confirmed using content analysis of semi-structured interviews, conducted on relatively larger group of SEs (in stage 1) and PMs (in stage 2). Additionally, 12 criteria are also identified in Phase II. Collectively 31 criteria are identified. The proposed criteria set is expected to comprehensively cover the SE performance on a continuous basis in various dimensions to award R&R.


2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Der-Martirosian ◽  
Tiffany A. Radcliff ◽  
Alicia R. Gable ◽  
Deborah Riopelle ◽  
Farhad A. Hagigi ◽  
...  

AbstractIntroductionThere have been numerous initiatives by government and private organizations to help hospitals become better prepared for major disasters and public health emergencies. This study reports on efforts by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Veterans Health Administration, Office of Emergency Management’s (OEM) Comprehensive Emergency Management Program (CEMP) to assess the readiness of VA Medical Centers (VAMCs) across the nation.Hypothesis/ProblemThis study conducts descriptive analyses of preparedness assessments of VAMCs and examines change in hospital readiness over time.MethodsTo assess change, quantitative analyses of data from two phases of preparedness assessments (Phase I: 2008-2010; Phase II: 2011-2013) at 137 VAMCs were conducted using 61 unique capabilities assessed during the two phases. The initial five-point Likert-like scale used to rate each capability was collapsed into a dichotomous variable: “not-developed=0” versus “developed=1.” To describe changes in preparedness over time, four new categories were created from the Phase I and Phase II dichotomous variables: (1) rated developed in both phases; (2) rated not-developed in Phase I but rated developed in Phase II; (3) rated not-developed in both phases; and (4) rated developed in Phase I but rated not- developed in Phase II.ResultsFrom a total of 61 unique emergency preparedness capabilities, 33 items achieved the desired outcome – they were rated either “developed in both phases” or “became developed” in Phase II for at least 80% of VAMCs. For 14 items, 70%-80% of VAMCs achieved the desired outcome. The remaining 14 items were identified as “low-performing” capabilities, defined as less than 70% of VAMCs achieved the desired outcome.Conclusion:Measuring emergency management capabilities is a necessary first step to improving those capabilities. Furthermore, assessing hospital readiness over time and creating robust hospital readiness assessment tools can help hospitals make informed decisions regarding allocation of resources to ensure patient safety, provide timely access to high-quality patient care, and identify best practices in emergency management during and after disasters. Moreover, with some minor modifications, this comprehensive, all-hazards-based, hospital preparedness assessment tool could be adapted for use beyond the VA.Der-MartirosianC, RadcliffTA, GableAR, RiopelleD, HagigiFA, BrewsterP, DobalianA. Assessing hospital disaster readiness over time at the US Department of Veterans Affairs. Prehsop Disaster Med. 2017;32(1):46–57.


2013 ◽  
Vol 31 (6_suppl) ◽  
pp. 121-121
Author(s):  
Scott T. Tagawa ◽  
Naveed Hassan Akhtar ◽  
Joseph Osborne ◽  
Paul J. Christos ◽  
Shankar Vallabhajosula ◽  
...  

121 Background: A phase II trial in men with progressive metCRPC receiving a single dose of 177Lu-J591 at 65 mCi/m2 (15 pts) or 70 mCi/m2 (phase I MTD, 17 pts) was performed without selection for PSMA expression, suggesting a larger than expected dose-response (13 vs 47% >30% PSA decline respectively), leading to an expansion cohort to validate the response rate at 70 mCi/m2. Methods: Endpoints: to validate the PSA and/or measurable disease response at 70 mCi/m2, evaluate circulating tumor cell counts (CellSearch) and pre-treatment PSMA imaging with 111In-J591 in the expansion cohort, and examine overall survival (OS) for all pts. Results: 15 additional pts were treated. Expansion cohort demographics were similar to the initial cohorts, and PSA responses and toxicity were similar to the initial cohort treated at 70 mCi/m2 (see Table), with myelotoxicity improving in all following nadir at 1 month. More PSA declines and longer OS were seen at 70 mCi/m2. 12 of 15 pts had baseline and follow up CTC counts at 4-6 weeks: 66.7% had >50% decline and 25% were unchanged at 0 or 1 (one declined 27%). Although 93.3% had accurate targeting (imaging) of known sites of disease, as seen in initial analysis, a trend for fewer > 30% PSA declines was seen with less intense PSMA imaging. Conclusions: Single dose 177Lu-J591 at70 mCi/m2 was generally well tolerated, with predictable, reversible myelosuppression, and demonstrates anti-tumor activity in pts with progressive metCRPC. A dose-response relationship was confirmed for both toxicity and activity, with improved response and OS at 70 mCi/m2. CTC declines are demonstrated. Selection of pts based upon non-invasive testing (PSMA imaging) may improve the therapeutic profile. Clinical trial information: NCT00195039. [Table: see text]


1984 ◽  
Vol 246 (6) ◽  
pp. E471-E475 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. P. Garetto ◽  
E. A. Richter ◽  
M. N. Goodman ◽  
N. B. Ruderman

Thirty minutes after a treadmill run, glucose utilization and glycogen synthesis in perfused rat skeletal muscle are enhanced due to an increase in insulin sensitivity (Richter et al., J. Clin. Invest. 69: 785-793, 1982). The exercise used in these studies was of moderate intensity, and muscle glycogen was substantially repleted at the time (30 min postexercise) that glucose metabolism was examined. When rats were run at twice the previous rate (36 m/min), muscle glycogen was still substantially diminished 30 min after the run. At this time the previously noted increase in insulin sensitivity was still observed in perfused muscle; however, glucose utilization was also increased in the absence of added insulin (1.5 vs. 4.2 mumol X g-1 X h-1). In contrast 2.5 h after the run, muscle glycogen had returned to near preexercise values, and only the insulin-induced increase in glucose utilization was evident. The data suggest that the restoration of muscle glycogen after exercise occurs in two phases. In phase I, muscle glycogen is depleted and insulin-stimulated glucose utilization and glucose utilization in the absence of added insulin may both be enhanced. In phase II glycogen levels have returned to near base-line values and only the increase in insulin sensitivity persists. It is proposed that phase I corresponds to the period of rapid glycogen repletion that immediately follows exercise and phase II to the period of supercompensation.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhao-hui Liang ◽  
Chang-cai Xie ◽  
Zi-ping Li ◽  
Xiao-ping Zhu ◽  
Ai-ping Lu ◽  
...  

Objective. To evaluate the similarity of deqi sensation of real and noninvasive placebo acupuncture in healthy people with knowledge of Chinese medicine.Methods. In a crossover design, volunteers recruited from Chinese medicine college students were randomized to two groups to receive two phases of intervention with a one-week washout interval. In Group A, the participants were firstly treated by real acupuncture and then by sham needle, and the treatment sequence was reversed in Group B. VAS for pain intensity and deqi sensation was evaluated as outcomes.Results. Sixty-three volunteers were recruited and 60 were included and finished the study. In Group A, VAS was higher in Phase I than in Phase II (P=0.017). Only treatment methods were selected as factor to VAS difference (P=0.046) in ANOVA test. More positive deqi was reported in Group A in Phase I when treated by real acupuncture (P=0.039), but the difference was not significant in Phase II (P=0.301).Conclusion. The noninvasive placebo acupuncture device can effetely simulate the deqi sensation as real acupuncture, but it is less likely to evoke the active effect of deqi in real practice. This trial is registered with Chinese Clinical Trial Registry:ChiCTR-ORC-09000505.


1975 ◽  
Vol 33 (03) ◽  
pp. 464-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur A Sasahara ◽  
William R Bell ◽  
Toby L Simon ◽  
James M Stengle ◽  
Sol Sherry

SummaryThe controlled clinical trials of thrombolytic agents in the United States have been carried out in two phases, under the auspices of the National Heart and Lung Institute. Phase I was devoted to the comparison of 12-hour Urokinase (12h–UK) followed by heparin (H) with heparin alone in patients with acute pulmonary embolism (Walsh et al. 1969). The results showed that patients treated with UK had more rapid and greater resolution of pulmonary thromboemboli in the first twenty-four hours of therapy than patients treated with H alone, as assessed by serial pulmonary angiography, hemodynamics and lung scanning (The Urokinase Pulmonary Embolism Trial, 1970, 1973 ; Hyers et al. 1970). Because of the relatively small size of the Trial and the low mortality of treated pulmonary embolism, mortality differences were not sought - nor was one found. Although there was early difference in amount of clot resolution, patients treated with H alone showed similar improvement by two weeks.The Phase II Urokinase-Streptokinase Pulmonary Embolism Trial (USPET) was begun to assess the comparative results of UK and Streptokinase (SK) therapy. Because of favorable results obtained with SK in other countries, it was deemed necessary to make this comparison (Browse and James, 1964 ; Hirsh et al. 1968 ; Miller et al. 1969, 1971 ; Chesterman et al. 1969). A third group, 12-hour UK, was added to relate this study (24-hour UK and SK) with the Phase I results which employed only a 12-hour infusion of UK. This Phase II Trial represents the first controlled, randomized study of UK and SK in thromboembolic disorders.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose Maria Pereira de Godoy ◽  
Maria De Fátima Guerreiro Godoy

UNSTRUCTURED Lymphedema is a health problem that affects millions of people around worldwide. There are, however, a number of barriers that obstruct development in both the prevention and treatment of this disease. One of these barriers is the current concept that splits the management of lymphedema in two phases: treatment (Phase I) and maintenance (Phase 2). The evolution of treatment requires new concepts that address the treatment of lymphedema as a whole. One of these new concepts, reported by Godoy, states that Phase I (treatment) ends when a total or near total reduction in edema is achieved. Phase II (maintenance) aims to keep the losses and keep the limb within the normal or near normal size.


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