[Electronic cigarettes and fertility: True or false friends?] / Cigarette électronique et fertilité : vrais ou faux amis ?

While electronic cigarettes have been on the rise in France for the past ten years, data on their prevalence, use patterns and safety have remained fragmented and controversial. Electronic cigarettes seem to not be a harmless product to use, because although they contain fewer harmful substances than traditional cigarettes, they still contain toxic products such as endocrine disruptors, which appear to have a negative impact on hormonal homeostasis, morphology and functioning of the animal reproductive system. Mostly presented as a harmless alternative to traditional cigarettes by industry lobbies, electronic cigarettes are often offered as an aid to smoking cessation in the same way as nicotinic substitutes. This strategy is especially proposed without knowledge of its effects on human reproductive health. Indeed, there are currently very few scientific publications, which study the impact of the use of electronic cigarettes, nicotine and the vapours it delivers on fertility and the functioning of the human female and male reproductive systems. Thus, the great majority of the data we have to date come from studies carried out in animal populations and show that electronic cigarettes exposure affect fertility. There is, to our knowledge, no scientific publication on the results in Assisted Reproductive Technology in case of use of electronic cigarettes, motivating the realization of the study IVF-VAP currently underway in the department of Medicine and Biology of Reproduction of the Amiens Picardie University Hospital.

[Incidence and distribution of venous thrombosis of the lower limbs diagnosed by duplex ultrasonography after total hip or total knee arthroplasty, and hip fracture surgery. Results from 5981 exams and 2123 cases of venous thrombosis over 10 years]. / Incidence et distribution des thromboses veineuses des membres inférieurs diagnostiquées par écho-doppler au décours de prothèses de hanche, de genou et de fractures de hanche. Résultats portant sur 5981 explorations et 2123 thromboses en dix ans.

AIM: To determine the incidence and distribution of lower limb venous thrombosis diagnosed by duplex ultrasonography, including calf exploration, after total hip or knee replacement or hip fracture, and to compare them with the venographic results reported by recent randomized control trials testing new antithrombotic drugs. PATIENTS AND METHODS: From January 2001 to December 2009, 30,510 standardized report forms incremented a database from which files corresponding to major orthopaedic surgery were selected: 1652 after total hip replacement (THR), 1440 after total knee replacement (TKR) and 2889 after hip fracture (HF). Base-line characteristics, incidence and anatomic distribution of venous thrombosis were analysed in the three populations. RESULTS: Systematic screening was applied for 95.1% of the exams (n=5689). Incidence of total and proximal venous thrombosis was, respectively, 27.8% (n=460) and 2.8% (n=46) for THR, 32.5% (n=939) and 4.4% (n=126) for HF, and 50.3% (n=724) and 3.8% (n=55) for TKR. Venous thrombosis was distal in 89.3% (n=1896). More than half (n=1014) of distal venous thromboses were strictly muscular soleal locations. Ilio-caval thrombosis incidence was 0.18% (n=11), and superficial venous thrombosis incidence was 1.5% (n=89). CONCLUSION: This study shows that incidence and distribution of venous thromboses diagnosed with a complete and standardized duplex ultrasonographic screening are very close to the rates published with venographic screening in recent trials.

Cytolytic effects and biochemical changes induced by extracellular ATP to isolated hepatocytes.

Cell death, as estimated by the release of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), was induced by incubating isolated hepatocytes for 60 min in the presence of extracellular ATP (ecATP), while AMP, adenosine, GTP and UTP were without any significant effects, even when tested at 3 mM (final concentration). At such a concentration, the release of LDH induced by ecATP, but also by ecADP, reached almost 50% and 30%, respectively. Since UTP and GTP (which have no lytic effects) were able to activate phosphorylase a at the same rate as ATP, we excluded the possibility that an increase of free cytosolic Ca2+ triggers the onset of a process leading to cell lysis. Moreover, such a lytic ability of ecATP (1.7 mM) can not be the result of a previous complexation of ionic iron (making it catalytically available for a Fenton reaction), because Desferal, a strong iron chelator, did not modify the cytolytic effect of the ecATP observed after 60 min of incubation. A major cellular function such as protein synthesis was impaired in a dose-dependent way by incubating hepatocytes during 60 min in the presence of ecATP. The inhibition was already observed at 0.1 mM ecATP, a dose without any effect on cell viability. The biological relevance of such metabolic impairment, however, remains to be elucidated.