More studies with other biopharmaceutical products are needed to strengthen the status of the minipig as an alternative model for immunotoxicity testing including immunogenicity.”
“Background. Recent studies have shown a strong relationship between testosterone levels and vasomotor actions. The aim of this study is to compare the elastic properties of the aorta in male patients with hypogonadism and eugonadal healthy control subjects. Method. A total of 22 male with Vorinostat in vitro hypogonadism (mean age: 35.2 +/- 9.5 years, mean disease duration: 5.3
+/- 1.8 years) and 25 age-, sex-and weight-matched eugonadal healthy subjects (mean age: 34.5 +/- 8.2 years) were enrolled in the study. Aortic stiffness (beta) index, aortic strain (AoS) and aortic distensibility (AoD) were calculated from the aortic diameters measured by transthoracic echocardiography and blood pressure obtained by sphygmomanometer. Results. The routinely performed echocardiographic parameters were similar HIF inhibitor between patient and control groups. There were significant differences between the control and patient groups in beta index (1.75 +/- 0.44 vs 2.68 +/- 1.72, p < 0.001), AoS (18.52 +/- 6.44 vs 12.35 +/-
3.88%, p < 0.001) and AoD (7.56 +/- 2.86 vs 3.96 +/- 1.24, 10(-6) cm(2)/dyn, p < 0.001). There were statistically significant positive correlations between the serum total testosterone level and AoD (r = 0.539, p < 0.001) and AoS (r = 0.372, p = 0.036); moreover, there was a negative
correlation between the serum total testosterone level and beta index (r = -0.462, p = 0.001). In multivariate analysis, serum total testosterone level was significantly related with AoD, AoS and beta index (respectively, RR = 2.88, p = 0.004; RR = 3.45, p = 0.001; RR = 2.64, p = 0.01). Conclusion. The study results showed that aortic elasticity was impaired in patients with hypogonadism. We also have demonstrated a statistically significant correlation between selleckchem aortic elastic properties and the serum total testosterone level.”
“Objective: Sex hormones and reproductive factors may be important for osteoarthritis (OA). The aim of this study was to describe the associations of parity, use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and oral contraceptives (OCs) with cartilage volume, cartilage defects and radiographic OA in a population-based sample of older women.
Design: Cross-sectional study of 489 women aged 50-80 years. Parity, use of HRT and OC was assessed by questionnaire; knee cartilage volume and defects by magnetic resonance imaging and knee joint space narrowing (JSN) and osteophytes by X-ray.
Results: Parity was associated with a deficit in total knee cartilage volume [adjusted beta = -0.69 ml, 95% confidence interval (CI) -1.34, -0.04]. Increasing parity was associated with decreasing cartilage volume in both the tibial compartment and total knee (both P trend <0.05).