[The imaging quality of the ureteral intramural tract in the adult male. A comparison between suprapubic and transrectal echography]. / Qualità dell'immagine del tratto intramurale dell'uretere nel maschio adulto. Confronto tra ecografia sovrapubica e transrettale.

PURPOSE: US is usually considered of little help in studying the ureters because it only shows proximal and distal tracts. The distal ureter is also difficult to study with most of the other imaging methods. Transrectal probes improve depiction of the intramural and pelvic tracts of the ureter, as well as image quality, dramatically providing good results in a short time. The first and, to our knowledge, the only report on this procedure has been Holm's (1994), where the author reported good results though in a small series. For years we have used transrectal US, performed for prostate studies, also to examine intramural ureters and have obtained good results in a short time. Thus we decided to compare the transrectal with the transabdominal approach. MATERIAL AND METHODS: We examined 92 randomly selected male patients with various urologic conditions but no ureter involvement using 3.5 MHz convex and 5.0 MHz biplane transrectal probes. Image quality was rated on an arbitrary scale (0-4) and then submitted to statistical analysis. RESULTS: Transrectal images were clearly superior to transabdominal ones (p = 0.012) and particularly, ureters were depicted in 93% versus 60% of cases, respectively. The amount of urine in the bladder appears to play a major role (the greater the amount the worse the image quality), while ureter depiction is independent of body habit and bladder squeezing. CONCLUSIONS: Our results are clearly superior to Holm's. Also, considering that the transrectal examination requires a short time, is cost-effective and little invasive, we believe that this method can play an extremely important role in lower ureter studies.

Cisplatin triggers platelet activation.

Clinical observations suggest that anticancer drugs could contribute to the thrombotic complications of malignancy in treated patients. Thrombotic microangiopathy, myocardial infarction, and cerebrovascular thrombotic events have been reported for cisplatin, a drug widely used in the treatment of many solid tumours. The aim of this study is to explore in vitro cisplatin effect on human platelet reactivity in order to define the potentially active role of platelets in the pathogenesis of cisplatin-induced thrombotic complications. Our results demonstrate that cisplatin increases human platelet reactivity (onset of platelet aggregation wave and thromboxane production) to non-aggregating concentrations of the agonists involving arachidonic acid metabolism. Direct or indirect activation of platelet phospholipase A(2) appears to be implicated. This finding contributes to a better understanding of the pathogenesis of thrombotic complications occurring during cisplatin-based chemotherapy.

[Obesity among patients admitted to a medical department at the Terni Hospital]. / L'obesità nei ricoverati presso un reparto medico dell'Ospedale di Terni.

The Authors report the results of a study intended to asses the prevalence of obesity in Terni's medical department. Body mass index (BMI) was used as a measure of obesity: it can easily be calculated from weight and height (W/H2) for any individual. A sample of 1195 patients (569 males and 626 females) was studied; obesity was found in 30% of the females and in 10% of the males.