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Copyright of Brasov Medical Journal / Jurnal Medical Brasovean is the property of Transilvania University of Brasov, Faculty of Medicine and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this study were analyzed water samples in terms of the content of nitrites, nitrates, ammonia collected from Ialomita river. The human or animal concentrations determine the accumulation of nitrogenous substances, represented by dejection wastewater and many other categories of waste from human activities. On land, the balance between NO3- and NH4+ is achieved when NO3 reaches about 150 mg N/g, and in fallow areas balance is 24 mg N/g. The most amounts of nitrogen accumulates in plants. Some plants contain about 500 times more nitrogen than soil reserves. Non-metals and anorganic anions are pollutants that cause environmental problems because they are used in large quantities as anions (nitrates and phosphates). The nitrate fertilizers are used extensively in the agriculture. During the growing, many fertilizers applied are absorbed by plant roots, and when growth ceases, nitrates released during the decomposition of plants go into the ground and can enrich adjacent watercourses. Increasing the amount of nitrogen causes algae populations flowering effect, called eutrophication, that often leads to the destruction of microorganisms by oxygen released from algal tissue death. The nitrite content is reduced significantly after wastewater treatment with 31,81% and nitrate content decreases with 31,45%. The water samples from Ialomita river demonstrates that, after performing wastewater treatment, the content of nitrates and nitrites is below the acceptable limits of law namely 10 mg/l for nitrates and 0,009 mg/l for nitrites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author of this study tried to demonstrate that exhaled NO measurement is an useful tool in the assessment of asthma: to assess the asthma severity, the presence of symptoms and the assessment of treatment efficacy. The conclusion of the study was the exhaled NO measurement can be significantly correlated with the presence of symptoms, number of symptoms and its intensity and as long as the NO values tend to be as close as possible to the normal values the symptoms are few or no symptom is present and thus, there is an improvement of the quality of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spirometry is a simple, widely available tool for investigating lung function. Modifications that appear at spirometry in allergic and infectious diseases with obstructive ventilatory disfunction are an important way to identify and measure the respiratory diseases. The porpouse of this paperwork is to corelate and identify the spirometry modifications between allergy/atopy and bronchial asthma, bronchitis, recurrent wheezing and also the importance, frequency, early diagnosis and the efficiency of different medications to reduce the symptomatology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tuberculous lymphadenitis is the most common form of extrapulmonar tuberculosis. Lymph node involvement in the absence of pulmonary tuberculosis makes a difficult and late diagnosis and a late treatment. Authors wish to present a series of clinical cases of lymph node involvement which have been particulary challenging through diagnosis and treatment because diagnosis and treatment of lymph node tuberculosis if is a single involvement or systemic involvement it still is very challenging even nowadays because a late diagnosis can lead to complications, a long-term disease and even death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soft tissue sarcoma are tumours of extrabone joint tissue. These are tumours of locomotion structure and of support structures. Malignant soft tissue tumours are: hystiocitoma, lyposarcoma, leiomiosarcoma, rabdomiosarcoma, hemangiosarcoma, synovial sarcoma or another tumours like alveolar sarcoma, extrabone Ewing sarcoma. Classical prognostic factors used to evaluate muscle-bone tumours are conected to the site of initial tumour, size, stadialization, recurrent disease and resection edge. It appears that some factors which are pulmonary diseminated soft tissue sarcoma metastase-related like uni-/bilateral metastases presence, time of birth of pulmonary metastases are of great impact on survival rate towards classical prognostic factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Postoperative radiotherapy (RT) in patients with clinically nonfunctioning pituitary adenomas (NFA) is still controversial. Aim. This study retrospectively reviews the tumor evolution in patients with NFA macroadenomas treated with surgery and conventional RT, as compared to surgery alone. Methods. Of 107 unselected patients with operated NFA (aged 19 - 77 years), evaluated between 1977 - 2008, 71 patients were follow-up without RT (group A), while 36 patients were submitted to RT (group B). Patients submitted to radiosurgery were not included. Both groups underwent serial imaging studies with computed tomography or magnetic resonance. Tumor evolution was conventionally defined as a change of minimum 25% of diameter. Results. The surgical approach was transfrontal in 47% of patients, transsphenoidal in 43% or both in 10% of patients, similar in both study groups. In group B, 30 patients underwent highvoltage RT (mean total dose 50.5 Gy) and 6 patients low-voltage RT (mean emission dose 16,775 R). Mean follow-up after surgery in group A was 3.4 years (range 6 months - 10 years) and after RT in group B it was 6.8 years (range 2 - 24 years), p < 0.001. In group A, 16 out of 71 patients had no visible tumor remnants. In this subgroup, 2 patients (12.5%) showed tumor recurrence. Fifty-five out of 71 patients had residual tumors, 21 with extrasellar extension after surgery. In this subgroup, 21 patients (38%) showed tumor re-growth and 7 (13%) showed tumor decrease. In group B (n=36) all patients had tumor remnants after surgery with extrasellar extension in 30 patients. After RT, tumor re-growth occurred in 5 out of 36 patients (14%) as compared to subgroup A with residual tumors (p< 0.05) and tumor decrease in 14 out of 34 (41%), as compared to the same subgroup A (p < 0.01). The 5 year-tumor re-growth free survival rate of 88% in irradiated patients was significantly better than in non-irradiated patients with residual tumors (31%, log-rank test, p < 0.01, Kaplan-Meier analysis), but similar to that in patients without remnants (87.5%). Age, sex, tumor parasellar extension and size of residual tumor were not predictors of recurrency. Conclusion. Postoperative radiotherapy provides a significant improvement of local control in patients with residual NFA compared to surgery alone. It is necessary a long term follow-up due to recurrency noticed up to 8 years postsurgery. In patients without tumor remnants, a wait-and-see policy is indicated after surgery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smoking prevalence is decreasing in developed countries in the last decades. Nevertheless, there is a constant increase of morbidity and mortality of smoking-related diseases (COPD, asthma, respiratory infections, cardiac diseases, cancer). Then why do doctors smoke? Because they experimented in adolescence and college and the addiction developed fast, while information about smoking risks arrived too late. Five hundred questionnaires were distributed to 100 doctors and 400 students between March-April 2009; 50% were returned from the doctors and 90.5% from the students. We analyzed comparative the smoking status (60% non-smoking doctors and 56.9% non-smoking students. Mean age was 25.05 for doctors and 24.2 for smoking students. Mean starting age was 17.13 years, 17.78 respectively. They were asked about major components of cigarettes, main diseases induced by smoking, the effects of nicotine addiction, known laws and projects, the need for introducing in the university curricula of anti-smoking modules. 20% of the doctors and 14.5% of the students had a smoking-related disease. 52% of doctors and 57% of students supported forbidding smokingin public spaces, 13.7% of doctors and 88.9% of students supported the increase of cigarettes price, and only 48% of doctors and 47% of students suggested the need of help for smoking cessation. We noticed there are flaws in knowledge of extra pulmonary diseases in students as well as doctors. Most respondents had lacking, non-systematic information and 96% of doctors and only 69.6% of students consider useful tabaccology lectures. For stopping epidemic morbidity and mortality due to smoking related diseases, there is need for involving all those working in health programmes. For this, medical schools should do better in preparing specialists. We also consider it is time that all medical specialties should consider smoking cessation a priority, while the pneumologists should sustain a systematic and routine activity against smoking.