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Patients with severely increased blood pressure often present to the emergency department. Rapid lowering of blood pressure can precipitate or worsen end organ damage. We report two cases that developed cerebrovascular and cardiovascular adverse events associated with aggressive treatment of increased blood pressure by the use of sublingual nifedipine capsule. The first patient had developed ischaemic stroke; the second patient actually had acute left ventricular failure causing deteriorated, and required positive inotropic treatment for persistent hypotension. These cases emphasise that the pseudoemergency may rapidly progress into a real emergency when blood pressure is rapidly and aggressively reduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An abstract of the article "Correlation between central venous pressure and pulmonary capillary wedge pressure during orthotopic liver transplantation," by G. Gemici and colleagues is presented.

Cell surface glycoproteins have been known to play very important roles in various physiologic and pathologic processes. Small molecule compounds capable of carbohydrate recognition can be very useful for the development of sensing, diagnostic, and therapeutic agents. Along this line, we are interested in developing water-soluble fluorescent boronic acid compounds for carbohydrate recognition. As such, a series of benzo[b]thiophene boronic acid derivatives have been synthesized and their fluorescent properties analyzed at physiologic pH. Benzo[b]thiophene derivatives were found to be a new type of fluorescent reporter compounds capable of dual fluorescent emission under physiologic pH conditions. Compounds 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6 showed unusual emission wavelength shifts upon binding of sugars. These boronic acids will be useful tools for building glycoprotein biosensors for biologic applications.