Isolated presence of antibody to hepatitis B core antigen in injection drug users: do they need to be vaccinated?

In a study of 497 injection drug users who had isolated presence of antibody to hepatitis B core antigen (anti-HBc) at the time of enrollment, 404 (81%) retained this condition after a mean of 49 months of follow-up, during which time no new hepatitis B surface antigen marker was detected. These findings support the hypothesis that patients with isolated presence of anti-HBc have strong resistance to reinfection and do not need vaccination.

[Infertility caused by subclinical infection of the male genital system. Evaluation of the effectiveness of norfloxacin]. / Infertilità da infezione subclinica dell'apparato genitale maschile. Valutazione della efficacia della norfloxacina.

Married couple infertility can be defined as a condition of lack of children after two years of marriage, accompanied by a seminal picture with one or more anomalies. A certain number of forms of infertility are successfully treatable, including bacterial conditions of the male genital apparatus which, however, require the availability of antibiotics capable of attaining therapeutic concentrations in the seminal plasma and, in general, in the genital apparatus. Norfloxacin in a personal series proceed++ to be highly effective from this point of view and led to cure of the infection and a statistically significant increase in sperm motility without the onset of unwanted side-effects.

Transdermal estradiol in the treatment of postmenopausal bone loss.

The effects on calcium metabolism and forearm bone mineral density of sequential transdermal estradiol (ESTRADERM TTS-50), 50 micrograms/day and medroxyprogesterone (10 mg/day for 12 days) was studied in a randomised controlled trial in 34 healthy females 2-4 years after the menopause. At the end of the 18 months' treatment course with transdermal estradiol, bone density was increased by 4.31% (P less than 0.01) but was decreased by 3.5% (P less than 0.01) in the control group. In the treated group, serum calcium, calcium excretion and hydroxyproline excretion significantly fell during the first 2 months with no significant changes thereafter. Serum alkaline phosphatase significantly decreased only after 4 months, it continued to fall until the fourteenth month when a plateau became apparent. Serum phosphate and tubular maximum for urinary phosphate progressively fell until the tenth month of therapy but thereafter they rose up to initial values. Serum intact parathyroid hormone did not show any significant change. In conclusion, small doses of transdermal estradiol are as effective as oral estrogens. This suggests that the bone sparing effects of estrogens may be due only to low circulating estradiol concentrations, but not to supraphysiological estrone levels. It seems also that estrogens exert both a straight inhibition of bone resorption and a partial inhibition of parathyroid responsiveness.

Intramuscular administration of salmon calcitonin impairs delayed cutaneous hypersensitivity.

The delayed cutaneous hypersensitivity to seven ubiquitous antigens (Multitest CMI, Istitute Merieux) was evaluated in normal healthy volunteers before and at the time of intramuscular administration of 50 (12 subjects) or 50 + 50 (nine subjects) units of salmon calcitonin or 2 ml of saline (eight subjects). The delayed cutaneous hypersensitivity, in terms of number of positive tests or sum of positive tests, significantly fell in both groups given salmon calcitonin, but no changes were observed in the control group. These results indicate that salmon calcitonin, as well as inhibiting osteoclastic bone resorption, has important immunological effects.