BACKGROUND: Prothrombin complex concentrates (PCC) are currently used to treat congenital or acquired coagulation factor deficiency. In case of serious bleeding caused by new oral anticoagulant agents, reversing treatment with PCC is under debate. PCC preparations mostly contain heparin to prevent thromboembolic events. In factor VIII and IX deficient plasma, ...

OBJECTIVES: In an attempt to reduce false positive results and improve turnaround time, we investigated the BD Rapid Serum Tube as an alternate sample type to lithium heparin plasma for Roche Troponin T analysis on the Roche Cobas e411 analyzer. DESIGN AND METHODS: BD Plasma Separator Tubes (PST) and Rapid ...

Anticoagulation is essential for maintaining the fluidity of extravascular blood on the apheresis circuit. Although both citrate and heparin are used as an anticoagulant during apheresis, citrate is preferred for the majority of exchange procedures because of its safety and effectiveness. Complications of citrate are primarily due to physiologic effects ...

The polyanion oversulfated chondroitin sulfate (OSCS) was identified as a contaminant in heparin products and was associated with severe hypotensive responses and other symptoms in patients receiving the drug. The OSCS associated adverse reactions were attributed to activation of the contact system via the plasma mediator, activated factor XII (FXIIa), ...

Subjects with obesity and insulin resistance display a low response to a serotonergic challenge test. One of the hallmarks of obesity and insulin resistance is elevated plasma free fatty acids (FFAs). We hypothesize that increasing plasma FFA by infusion of a lipid emulsion, may be a contributing component leading to ...

© 2012 The Authors. British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology © 2012 The British Pharmacological Society.

BACKGROUND: Since cardiac troponins assay technology should comply with the recommendations of scientific societies (i.e. imprecision (10%) at the 99th percentile value observed in healthy subjects being the analytical qualifying aspect), the aim of the present study was to evaluate whether an improved troponin assay (Vitros Troponin I ES) provides ...

Abstract Objective. The aims of this study were to examine the effects of prophylactic heparin treatment during taurocholate-induced pancreatitis in rats and its impact on serum VEGF levels and local VEGF contents within the pancreas. Methods. Severe acute pancreatitis (SAP) was induced by injecting 4% sodium taurocholate into the pancreatic ...

Activation of kinin-kallikrein and complement pathways by oversulfated-chondroitin-sulfate (OSCS) has been linked with recent heparin-associated adverse clinical events. Given the fact that the majority of patients who received contaminated heparin did not experience an adverse event, it is of particular importance to determine the circumstances that increase the risk of ...

OBJECTIVEInsulin resistance and type 2 diabetes are associated with an increased risk of neurodegenerative diseases. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) regulates neuronal differentiation and synaptic plasticity, and its decreased levels are supposed to play a role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease and other disorders. The aim of the current study ...

Growth hormone (GH) therapy in children with small for gestational age (SGA) has been shown to be of significant therapeutic benefit. We report the case of an 11-year-old Caucasian male who developed early adrenarche, hypertension and insulin resistance on GH therapy for SGA and profound short stature (ht -5 SD). ...

Heparin induces apoptosis on peripheral neutrophils, mononuclear cells of the healthy controls, and on lymphoblasts of the patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, in vitro. We studied the caspase-9 activity and cytochrome C level as the indicators of the apoptotic effect of heparin on lymphoblasts by the intrinsic pathway of apoptosis. ...

To study the effects of heparin and low-molecular weight heparin (LMWH) on potassium and sodium levels in patients with cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) and stroke. Sixty patients were recruited with 30 patients each receiving heparin and enoxaparin. Patients with CVD and stroke receiving heparin and LMWH were compared for their demographic ...

BACKGROUND: The two main matrices for screening are urine or serum and heparinized plasma. Whereas urine has the advantage of usually higher concentrations and longer detection windows, serum or heparinized plasma represent the current systemic drug exposure of a patient. MATERIALS AND METHODS: An online extraction LC-MS(n) method using a ...

We investigated the use of serum samples from BD Vacutainer rapid serum tubes (RSTs; BD, Franklin Lakes, NJ) to reduce undetermined interferences contributing to false-positive immunoassay results in heparin plasma samples. Patients being evaluated for suspected myocardial infarction had specimens drawn into an RST in addition to the standard lithium-heparin ...

Novel and sensitive plate-based fluorogenic anti-factor Xa (FXa) assays were investigated to quantify unfractionated heparin (UFH) in human plasma and whole blood within the therapeutic ranges of 0-1.6U/mL and 0-0.8U/mL, respectively. Two fluorogenic anti-FXa assay methods were defined for low (0-0.6U/mL) and high (0.6-1.2U/mL) pharmacologically relevant UFH concentration ranges in ...

Neonates have lower levels of clotting factors as well as inhibitors. Effects of heparin in neonatal plasma differ from those in adult plasma, and dosage recommendations cannot be extrapolated from adult trials. Riveroxaban is an oral direct factor Xa inhibitor that can achieve an anticoagulant effect without dependence on anti-thrombin. ...

BACKGROUND: Chronic inflammation is etiologically-related to several cancers. We evaluated the performance (ability to detect concentrations above the assay's lower limit of detection, coefficients-of-variation [CVs], and intraclass correlation coefficients [ICCs]) of 116 inflammation, immune, and metabolic markers across two luminex bead-based commercial kits and three specimen types. METHODS: From 100 ...

: The objective of this study was to investigate the immediate response of the dopamine-regulated growth hormone (GH) to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in schizophrenic patients and the changes in the serum GH levels throughout the consecutive sessions of the therapeutic ECT course. : Serum GH levels were measured in a ...

Alterations in the hypothalamo-pituitary-thyroid axis have been reported following growth hormone (GH) administration in both adults and children with and without growth hormone deficiency. Reductions in serum free thyroxine (T4), increased tri-iodothyronine (T3) with or without a reduction in serum thyroid-stimulating hormone secretion have been reported following GH replacement, but ...

We examined the effect of GH substitution on adipose tissue-derived hormones and cytokines and sought to identify predictors for changes in body composition during therapy. Long-standing adult-onset GH deficiency (AO-GHD) is associated with increased body fat mass (FM) which, through production of hormones and inflammatory cytokines from adipose tissue, may ...

Growth hormone (GH) measurements are routinely used for important treatment decisions in patients with acromegaly, yet their reliability is affected by numerous factors including assay precision and variability, sampling intensity, and hormone pulsatility. The day-to-day variation in GH in acromegaly has not been studied. This study quantified the magnitude of ...

To evaluate the treatment effects of long-term growth hormone (GH) replacement therapy in adults with GH deficiency (GHD) who were followed in KIMS Germany (Pfizer International Metabolic Database), a national surveillance study. The analysis was performed using baseline and long-term data (range: 4-10years) of 440 consecutively documented patients (216 women ...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the acute and long-term effects of local high-intensity vibration (HLV, f = 300 Hz) on muscle performance and blood hormone concentrations in healthy young men. Totally 18 subjects (cV group) were studied in two sessions, either without (control) or with HLV treatment. The protocol was ...

Background/Aim: Children with β-thalassemia have chronic anemia and growth retardation. Impaired growth hormone (GH)-insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) axis function has been demonstrated. Growth improvement has been demonstrated following optimal blood transfusion. Whether correction of anemia by blood transfusion augments GH-IGF-1 axis function has not been established. Methods: Twenty children with ...

GH plays important pleiotropic roles in development, growth, metabolism, and aging of vertebrate species. Mouse mutants with altered GH signaling have been increasingly instrumental in studying somatotropic pathophysiology. However, the pulsatile characteristics of GH secretion are difficult to study in mice because catheterization is cumbersome and long-term serial sampling is ...

Obesity is associated with reduced testosterone and growth hormone (GH). However, the interrelationship between these axes and their independent contributions to cardiovascular risk is unknown. The objectives of this study were to determine (1) the association between testosterone and GH in obesity, (2) whether excess adiposity mediates this association and ...

To describe the clinical manifestations of growth hormone (GH) excess in children with optic pathway tumors (OPT). Descriptive case series of 5 children with OPT, 3 with associated neurofibromatosis type 1, referred for evaluation of accelerated linear growth. GH excess was evaluated by oral glucose tolerance tests with frequent sampling ...

Background/Aims: In prepubertal short children with idiopathic growth retardation, growth hormone (GH) peak after GH release stimuli classifies patients as growth hormone- deficient (GHD) or non-GHD. This study compared a 2-year growth response to GH therapy in 318 prepubertal short children. Methods: Patients were classified as: severe GHD (GH peaks ...

Pituitary somatotrophs secrete growth hormone (GH) into the bloodstream, to act as a hormone at receptor sites in most, if not all, tissues. These endocrine actions of circulating GH are abolished after pituitary ablation or hypophysectomy, indicating its pituitary source. GH gene expression is, however, not confined to the pituitary ...

Abnormal exposure to steroid hormones within a critical developmental period elicits permanent alterations in female reproductive physiology in rodents, but the impact on the female GH axis and the underlying sexual differences in hepatic enzymes have not been described in detail. We have investigated the effect of neonatal androgenization of ...

Measurement of GH after oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) is used for the diagnosis and surveillance of acromegaly. However, there are major discrepancies between glucose-suppressed GH and plasma IGF1 as indices of biochemical activity of acromegaly in patients with relatively mild GH oversecretion. This study was aimed to assess the ...

Quantitatively, GH secretion exists as a continuum in states ranging from good health through to hypopituitarism. Currently, GH replacement is considered only for adults designated as being severely GH deficient (GHD). In clinical practice the gold standard, on which the biochemical diagnosis of severe GHD is based, centres on the ...

Therapeutic use of recombinant GH typically involves daily sc injections. We examined the possibilities for prolonging the in vivo circulation of GH by introducing N-glycans. Human GH variants with a single potential N-glycosylation site (N-X-S/T) introduced by site-directed mutagenesis were expressed in HEK293 cells. In a scan of 15 different ...

In mammals, insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) is positively correlated with adult body mass, in comparisons made within a given species. In mice, IGF-1 deficiency is associated with dwarfism, whereas IGF-1 overproduction in transgenic animals causes gigantism. Surprisingly, the opposite is true in an inter-species context. We collected published plasma total ...

We analyzed the ability of the BaF3 cell line bioassay to select patients with biologically inactive GH. We first evaluated the biological response of the Ba/F3-hGHR cells to rhGH additional doses from 10 to 5000 pg/ml. The concentration points corresponding to the linear part of the curve were selected. We ...

Current therapies for acromegaly are unsatisfactory for some patients. High-dose thiazolidinediones have been reported to reduce serum GH levels in animal models of acromegaly. The objective of the study was to evaluate the effect of increasing doses of rosiglitazone on serum GH and IGF-I concentrations in acromegalic patients. Phase 2 ...

Patients with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) due to maternal uniparental disomy of the chromosome 15 (UPD15) have fewer facial features, less hypopigmentation and higher levels of psychosis compared to subjects with deletion in chromosome 15 (del15q11-q13). PWS individuals carrying the larger type I (TI) deletion suffer from greater behavioral problems than ...

CONTEXT: Fibromyalgia (FM) is characterized by widespread pain and fatigue and is considered a syndrome with different pathogenic mechanisms. Controversial data on GH axis disturbances have been published. Some preliminary trials have shown promising effects of GH therapy on tender points and quality of life in FM. AIM: The aim ...

The somatotropic axis (growth hormone [GH] and insulinlike growth factor I [IGFI]) play a role in the cognitive deficits seen with aging, GH deficiency, and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer disease. We recently reported elevations in basal plasma GH and IGFI levels in patients with Huntington disease (HD). Here, our ...

Treatment with pegvisomant, an antagonist of growth hormone (GH) receptors, increases GH levels in a dose dependent manner. Cabergoline can suppress GH secretion in approximately 40% of acromegalic patients. However, the acute effects of cabergoline have not been studied in patients treated with pegvisomant. We performed this cross-sectional study to ...

OBJECTIVE: Subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) is a recently identified risk factor for hypopituitarism, particularly growth hormone (GH) and corticotrophins deficiencies. The aim of our study was to identify possible predictor(s) for neuroendocrine dysfunction in SAH survivors. DESIGN: Pituitary function was evaluated in 93 patients (30 males, 63 females), aged 48.0+/-1.1 years ...

BACKGROUND: The anti-natriuretic properties of growth hormone (GH) are well established. Growth hormone deficiency (GHD) results in salt and water depletion and studies confirm that replacement leads to sodium and vasopressin-mediated water retention in patients with intact posterior pituitary function. METHODS: We report the case of a 20-year-old male patient ...

Defects in the growth hormone (GH)-insulin-like growth factor (IGF)I axis may cause GH resistance characterized by IGFI deficiency and growth failure. The range of defects causing GH resistance is broad as are their biochemical and phenotypical characteristics. We propose that GH-IGFI axis defects form a continuum of clinical and biochemical ...

To clarify the role of serotonin (5-HT) in the regulatory mechanism of L-tryptophan (TRP)--induced growth hormone (GH) secretion in cattle, changes in 5-HT concentrations in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in the third ventricle (3V) and GH in plasma before and after the peripheral infusion of TRP were determined simultaneously. The ...

Hormonal dysfunction is a known consequence of moderate and severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). In this study we determined the incidence, time course, and clinical correlates of acute post-TBI gonadotroph and somatotroph dysfunction. Patients had daily measurement of serum luteinizing hormone (LH), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), testosterone, estradiol, growth hormone, and ...

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) has been recently recognized as a leading cause of pituitary dysfunction. Current data clearly demonstrated that sports related head trauma due to boxing, kickboxing, and soccer might results in pituitary hormone deficiencies, isolated growth hormone (GH) deficiency in particular. In the present report physiologic dose GH ...

The present study was undertaken to investigate in pubertal male rats possible effects of endosulfan administered throughout lactation and gestation on: (a) pituitary gene expression of prolactin, luteinizing hormone (LH), growth hormone (GH) and thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH); (b) circulating levels of these hormones; and (c) expression of nitric oxide ...

GH receptors exist in the hippocampus, cerebral cortex, and hypothalamus, possibly influencing mood, cortical blood flow, and neuronal growth and mediating negative feedback. Pegvisomant is a recombinant mutated GH molecule with high affinity, but little or no activating capability, for the GH receptor. It is used clinically as a GH ...

CONTEXT: Paracrine regulation is emerging as a discrete control mechanism in the endocrine system. In hypogonadal men, stimulation of GH secretion by testosterone requires prior aromatization to estradiol, a paracrine effect unmasked by central estrogen receptor blockade with tamoxifen. In hypogonadal women, estrogen replacement via a physiological non-oral route fails ...