[Effects of cinepazide maleate injection on blood pressure in patients with acute ischemic stroke and hypertension].

Objective: To investigate the blood pressure change in patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS) and hypertension treated with cinepazide maleate injection. Methods: This was a subgroup analysis of post-marketing clinical confirmation study of cinepazide maleate injection for acute ischemic stroke: a randomized, double-blinded, multicenter, placebo-parallel controlled trial, which conducted in China from August 2016 to February 2019. Eligible patients fulfilled the inclusive criteria of acute anterior circulation ischemic stroke with National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) scores of 7-25. The primary endpoints were mean blood pressure of AIS patients treated with cinepazide maleate or control, which were assessed during the treatment period (14 days), and the proportion of the patients with normal blood pressure was analyzed after the treatment period. Furthermore, a subgroup analysis was performed to investigate a possible effect of the history of hypertension on outcomes. Results: This analysis included 809 patients with hypertension. There was no significant difference in patients blood pressure and the proportion of patients with normal blood pressure (60.5% vs. 59.0%,P>0.05) between cinepazide maleate group and control group. Conclusion: Administration of cinepazide maleate injection does not affect the management of clinical blood pressure in patients with AIS.

Review of telemedicine projects in Taiwan.

Taiwan is a heavily populated country, with a small land area and many mountains and isolated islands. Because medical resources are unequally distributed, high quality accessible medical care is a major problem in rural areas. Medical personnel are unwilling to practice in rural areas because of fear of isolation from peers and lack of continuing medical education (CME) in those areas. Telemedicine provides a timeless and spaceless measure for teleconsultation and education. The development of telemedicine in Taiwan began under the National Information Infrastructure (NII) Project. Distance education and teleconsultation were the first experimental projects during the initiation research stage. The cost and effectiveness of the hardware and network bandwidth were evaluated. In the promotion research stage, applications in different medical disciplines were tested to promote multipoint videoconference, electronic journals and VOD. Investigation of user satisfaction put on more emphasis on improving application functions. In 1998, a new Cyber Medical Center (CMC) international collaboration project was begun, integrating technologies of multimedia, networking, database management, and the World Wide Web. The aim of the CMC is to create a multimedia network system for the management of electronic patient records, teleconsultation, online continuing medical education, and information services on the web. A Taiwan mirror site of Virtual Hospital and two international telemedicine trials through Next Generation Internet (NGI) were done at the end of 1998. In the future, telemedicine systems in Taiwan are expected to combine the Internet and broadband CATV, ADSL, and DBS networking to connect clinics, hospitals, insurance organizations, and public health administrations; and, finally, to extend to every household.