Showing papers by "Rambam Health Care Campus published in 1990"

Ten-Year Mortality from Cardiovascular Disease in Relation to Cholesterol Level among Men with and without Preexisting Cardiovascular Disease

Abstract: To determine the associations of total, low-density lipoprotein (LDL), and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol with mortality from coronary heart disease and cardiovascular disease, we studied 2541 white men who were 40 to 69 years old at base line and followed them for an average of 10.1 years. Seventeen percent had some manifestation of cardiovascular disease at base line, whereas the others did not. Among the men who had cardiovascular disease at base line, we found, after multivariate adjustment, that those with "high" blood cholesterol levels (above 6.19 mmol per liter) had a risk of death from cardiovascular disease, including coronary heart disease, that was 3.45 times higher (95 percent confidence interval, 1.63 to 7.33) than that for men with "desirable" blood cholesterol levels (below 5.16 mmol per liter). The corresponding hazard ratios were 5.92 (95 percent confidence interval, 2.59 to 13.51) for LDL cholesterol levels above 4.13 mmol per liter as compared with those below 3.35 mmol per liter, and 6.02 (95 percent confidence interval, 2.73 to 13.28) for HDL cholesterol levels below 0.90 mmol per liter as compared with those above 1.16 mmol per liter. All three lipid levels were also significant predictors of death from coronary heart disease alone (P less than 0.005). Total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol levels were also significant predictors of death from cardiovascular and coronary heart disease in men without preexisting cardiovascular disease, although at a lower level of absolute risk of death. Thus, the 10-year risk of death from cardiovascular disease for a man with preexisting cardiovascular disease increased from 3.8 percent to almost 19.6 percent with increasing levels of total cholesterol from "desirable" to "high," whereas the corresponding risk for a man who was free of cardiovascular disease at base line increased from 1.7 percent to 4.9 percent. Our findings suggest that total, LDL, and HDL cholesterol levels predict subsequent mortality in men 40 to 69 years of age, especially those with preexisting cardiovascular disease.

Comparison of unbound and total serum theophylline concentrations with those of stimulated and unstimulated saliva in asthmatic children

Abstract: Unstimulated saliva, citric acid stimulated saliva, and serum were collected from 31 asthmatic children taking theophylline. Salivary theophylline concentrations, and total and unbound serum theophylline concentrations were measured. The correlation coefficients between both types of saliva, and total and unbound serum theophylline were all statistically significant (p less than 0.001). The highest correlation coefficients were obtained with stimulated saliva and total serum concentrations (r = 0.98), and stimulated saliva and unbound serum (r = 0.96). The coefficients when unstimulated saliva was compared to either total or unbound serum concentrations were 0.90 and 0.89, respectively. Serum binding of theophylline averaged 58.1%. Unstimulated saliva had a higher mean theophylline concentration than stimulated saliva. The results suggest that salivary monitoring using stimulated saliva may be used to predict serum concentrations with a high degree of confidence when the saliva levels are substantially lower than, higher than, or in the middle of the therapeutic range, but there is a considerable degree of uncertainty when the salivary values are near the lower or upper end of the therapeutic range.

Administered dose and tumor dose of bleomycin labeled with cobalt-57 in mice and men

Abstract: Tumor concentrations of the chemotherapeutic drug, bleomycin, labeled with cobalt-57 (Co-bleo) were compared in mouse tumor models and in human lung tumors using quantitative single-photon emission computed tomography. Drug concentrations in histologically similar human tumors showed marked variability for the same injected dose (ID). Small cell carcinomas showed concentrations between 1.09 and 8.85 %ID/cc x 10(-3) while non-small cell lung tumors showed a concentration variation between 0.36 and 6.75 %ID/cc x 10(-3). In contrast to the situation in human tumors, uptake in mouse tumors showed only slight variability in animals with the same tumor model. EMT-6 tumors in mice showed at 6 hr significantly higher uptake of Co-bleo (p less than 0.001) and significantly higher tumor-to-lung ratio (p less than 0.001) when compared to murine fibrosarcomas. The EMT-6 tumors in contrast to the fibrosarcomas responded to bleomycin treatment in a dose dependent manner. The results indicate that while in mice the tumor dose closely follows the administered dose, in humans, the tumor dose and the tumor-to-lung ratio in the individual patient cannot be predicted from the administered dose.