Laser therapy for urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Laser therapy is now being proposed for the treatment of pelvic organ prolapse (POP) and urinary incontinence (UI). OBJECTIVES: To systematically review the available literature on laser therapy for POP and UI. SEARCH STRATEGY: PubMed, Web Of Science and Embase were searched for relevant articles, using a three-concept (POP, UI, laser therapy) search engine composed as (concept 1 OR concept 2) AND concept 3. SELECTION CRITERIA: Only full-text clinical studies in English. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Data on patient characteristics, laser setting, treatment outcome and adverse events were independently collected by two researchers. There was a lack of methodological uniformity so meta-analysis was not possible and the results are presented narratively. MAIN RESULTS: Thirty-one studies recruiting 1530 adult women met the inclusion criteria. All studies showed significant improvement either on UI, POP or both; however the heterogeneity of laser settings, application and outcome measures was huge. Only one study was a randomised controlled trial, two studies were controlled cohort studies. All three were on UI and used standardised validated tools. The risk of bias in the randomised controlled trial was low on all seven domains; the controlled studies had a serious risk of bias. No major adverse events were reported, mild pain and burning sensation were the most commonly described adverse events. CONCLUSIONS: All studies on vaginal and/or urethral laser application for POP and UI report improvement, but the quality of studies needs to be improved. TWEETABLE ABSTRACT: There is weak evidence that laser therapy is effective for urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse #LASER#UI#POP.

High-performance liquid chromatographic assay to detect hydroxylate and conjugate metabolites of propofol in human urine.

This paper describes a HPLC method for the simultaneous detection of phase I (2,6-diisopropyl-1-4-quinol and 2,6-diisopropyl-1-4-quinone) and phase II (4-(2,6-diisopropyl-1-4-quinol)-sulphate, 1-(2,6-diisopropyl-1-4-quinol)-glucuronide, 4-(2,6-diisopropyl-1-4-quinol)-glucuronide, and propofol-glucuronide) metabolites of propofol in human urine samples. Separation was based on a simple mobile phase and a reversed-phase chromatographic column. Metabolite identification was performed by UV spectrum on a diode-array detector and by LC-APCI-MS. The identification was also carried out using in vitro incubation mixtures (cytosol and microsomes prepared from liver) from several species: human, rat and rabbit. This assay was performed using UV, fluorescence and electrochemical detection modes. Each of these was analyzed and discussed.

Protein nitrogen unit precipitation procedure for allergenic extracts: collaborative study.

Protein nitrogen unit (NU) determination is one of the methods used to test and label the concentration of allergenic extracts. This recently standardized method is applicable to all allergenic extracts. One PNU/mL is equivalent to 1 X 10(-5) mg nitrogen determined to be in the material precipitated from 1 mL allergenic extract by phosphotungstic acid (PTA), a protein precipitant. The nitrogen is quantitated by the Kjeldahl method or another analytical method of equivalent accuracy and precision. A collaborative study of the optimized PNU precipitation method in which 6 samples were analyzed in duplicate by 6 laboratories using the Kjeldahl method for the determination of nitrogen yielded a mean of 0.1358 mg N/mL, a repeatability standard deviation and coefficient of variation of 0.0071 mg N/mL and 5.23%, respectively, and a reproducibility standard deviation and coefficient of variation of 0.0188 mg N/mL and 13.84%, respectively. The method has been adopted official first action.