Luis Collado-Yurrita

Estudio de 5 compuestos orgánicos volátiles en aire exhalado en la enfermedad pulmonar obstructiva crónica

INTRODUCTION A major risk factor for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is tobacco smoke, which generates oxidative stress in airways, resulting in the production of volatile organic compounds (VOC). The purpose of this study was to identify VOCs in exhaled breath and to determine their possible use as disease biomarkers. METHOD Exhaled breath from 100 healthy volunteers, divided into 3groups (never smokers, former smokers and active smokers) and exhaled breath from 57 COPD patients were analyzed. Samples were collected using BioVOC® devices and transferred to universal desorption tubes. Compounds were analyzed by thermal desorption, gas chromatography and mass spectrometry. VOCs analyzed were linear aldehydesand carboxylic acids. RESULTS The COPD group and healthy controls (never smokers and former smokers) showed statistically significant differences in hexanal concentrations, and never smokers and the COPD group showed statistically significant differences in nonanal concentrations. CONCLUSIONS Hexanal discriminates between COPD patients and healthy non-smoking controls. Nonanal discriminates between smokers and former smokers (with and without COPD) and never smokers.

Vitamin D: And its role in breast cancer

Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin that plays a role in calcium and phosphorus homeostasis. Recently, extensive research on its extraskeletal actions has linked vitamin D deficiency to an increased risk of infection, diabetes mellitus types 1 and 2, cardiovascular disease, obesity, asthma, inflammatory bowel disease, colon, breast, prostate and ovarian cancer and some neurological diseases. There are various mechanisms by which vitamin D influences the natural history of cancer. These include the role of vitamin D in the induction of apoptosis, stimulation of cell differentiation, anti‐inflammatory and antiproliferative effects and inhibition of angiogenesis, invasion and metastasis. The aim of this review is to clarify the true role of vitamin D in the onset of breast cancer and evolution of the disease after treatment. A further aim is to suggest new research directions to identify indications and requirements for vitamin D supplementation in patients with breast cancer.

Musculoskeletal ultrasound: an effective tool to help medical students improve joint inflammation detection?

AIM The objective of this study was to evaluate whether musculoskeletal (MS) ultrasound (US) can be useful in helping medical students to detect joint inflammation through physical examination. MATERIAL AND METHODS The study was performed by two groups of four 6th year medical students. None had received any previous training in the clinical examination of joints or the use of ultrasound. Students were put through a 5-session training programme on the clinical detection of either knee [group 1] or metacarpophalangeal (MCP) [group 2] inflammation. After an initial training session on physical examination of normal and inflamed joints, the students examined 170 joints from 41 patients attending the hospital outpatient clinic in 4 separate sessions. The same joints were assessed for synovitis with US with the ensuing data compared to that of the students and analyzed for concordance with Cohens unweighted kappa. RESULTS In total 60 knees [group 1] and 110 MCP [group 2] were evaluated. The agreement between the presence of arthritis detected by the students in the four sessions and the presence of synovitis detected by US improved from the session I to sessions III with a marked improvement in the last session. CONCLUSIONS MSUS may be an effective technique for helping students to acquire the ability to detect joint inflammation.