1,720,964 research outputs found
Thyroid outcome during long-term gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist treatments for idiopathic precocious puberty
No full textPURPOSE: To examine the effects of long-term gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist (GnRHa) administration on thyroid function in children affected by central precocious puberty (CPP).
METHODS:
We retrospectively evaluated circulating thyroid hormones in 73 GnRHa-treated girls who were diagnosed with idiopathic CPP. Monthly depot injections (.1 mg/body kg) of leuprorelin acetate (LA) and of triptorelin (TR) were continuously administered for 40.4 +/- .7 months to 34 and 39 CPP patients, respectively. Serum levels of thyrotropin (TSH), free triiodothyronine (FT3), free thyroxine (FT4), and thyroid antibodies were determined at baseline and after 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, and 40 months of GnRHa administration.
RESULTS:
While there was no difference in FT4 release (p > .05), FT3 levels significantly declined during both LA and TR treatments from untreated baseline (p .05), FT3/FT4 ratio was significantly different among LA and TR groups (p .05); however, LA induced lower TSH values than TR (p < .05).
CONCLUSIONS:
There is no evidence of thyroid dysfunction during both GnRHa treatments, though changes in TSH, FT3, and FT3/FT4 ratios were noted. Finally, monitoring of thyroid activity during GnRHa administration is not required
Growth Outcome during GnRH Agonist Treatments for Slowly Progressive Central Precocious Puberty
No full textBackground: Gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonists (GnRHa) represent the gold-standard treatment for central precocious puberty (CPP). In CPP children, GnRHa treatment slows bone age progression and preserves adult height (Ht) by suppressing sexual steroid secretion. In some patients, however, GnRHa induce an inappropriate growth deceleration impairing Ht outcome. Furthermore, slowly progressive CPP (spCPP) forms were reported which do not need GnRHa treatment. Methods: We evaluated the growth outcome of 26 spCPP girls treated with triptorelin (TR) and 21 with leuprorelin acetate (LA) for 36.5 +/- 0.7 months. Results: GnRHa treatment induced a progressive growth deceleration in both spCPP groups. No difference in bone maturation was detected (p > 0.05; TR vs. LA group), however compared to LA, TR treatment resulted in significantly higher Ht after 24 months (p 0.05; LA vs. TR group), final height (FH-SDS) was lower in LA-treated subjects (p < 0.05; LA vs. TR group). In both spCPP groups, FH-SDS was significantly lower than TH-SDS (p < 0.001) but not lower than PAH-SDS at diagnosis (p 1 0.05). Ht-SDS correlated with 17 beta-estradiol (E(2)) blood levels in both spCPP groups (p < 0.0001) throughout GnRHa treatment, and E(2) values were higher in the TR- than in the LA-treated patients during the 12 months after GnRHa administration (p < 0.05; LA vs. TR group). GnRHa-induced E(2) secretion and Ht-SDS at GnRHa withdrawal correlated positively with FH (p < 0.01 and p < 0.001, respectively). Conclusions: The effectiveness of GnRHa treatment in improving FH in spCPP girls was doubtful. Copyright (C) 2009 S. Karger AG, Base
Human breast milk and xenoestrogen exposure: a possible impact on human health.
No full textHuman milk is the best natural and optimal food for neonates with several immunologic, developmental and practical advantages throughout childhood. Although the World Health Organization strongly supports breastfeeding, it recognizes the potential health risks posed by the presence of environmental toxicants in breast milk. Contamination of human milk is widespread and due to decades of inadequately controlled pollution by toxicants, persistent pesticides or chemical solvents. These chemicals tend to degrade slowly in the environment, to bioaccumulate in the food chain and to have long half-lives in humans. Many of these environmental pollutants have estrogen-like activities and, thus they are called environmental estrogen disruptors or xenoestrogens. Certain adverse health and reproductive outcomes are attributed to these chemicals in laboratory animals and in wildlife as well as in humans. Here, we review available data from breast milk monitoring studies suggesting the environmental chemicals that may affect child health through breastfeeding
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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