Effects of rabeprazole on early symptom relief in gastro-oesophageal reflux disease: the Hellenic Rabeprazole Study Group surveillance study.

BACKGROUND: In controlled clinical trials, rabeprazole effectively improves symptoms and heals oesophageal erosions in patients with gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD). AIM: To examine symptom relief during week 1 of rabeprazole therapy, in addition to GORD healing, in a clinical practice setting. METHODS: In this 8-week, prospective, multicentre, postauthorisation surveillance study conducted in Greece, patients with GORD (intent-to-treat: efficacy, 272; safety, 273) were treated with rabeprazole 20 mg once daily. The primary efficacy end point was the change from baseline in GORD symptom severity on day 1, 2, 3 and 7 using a 5-point Likert scale (1 = no symptoms; 5 = severe symptoms). Oesophageal healing was also evaluated by comparing the results of endoscopic findings at baseline and after 4 and 8 weeks of treatment. RESULTS: On day 1 of treatment, rabeprazole relieved GORD symptoms across all grades of oesophagitis, with statistically significant (p = 0.0001) improvement in heartburn, regurgitation, epigastric pain and dysphagia. Oesophageal healing was achieved in 77% of patients at week 4 and in 90% at week 8 and treatment was well tolerated. CONCLUSIONS: In a clinical practice setting, rabeprazole provided rapid relief of GORD symptoms, confirming results seen in controlled clinical trials.

Development of a highly sensitive RT-PCR luminometric hybridization assay for human telomerase reverse-transcriptase beta-plus transcript.

BACKGROUND: Telomerase is a general diagnostic and prognostic molecular tumor marker since it is expressed in the majority of human tumors in contrast to most healthy tissues. Alternate splicing of human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) has been shown to affect telomerase activity. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We have developed a hybridization assay that selectively detects the hTERT beta-plus transcript. Biotinylated PCR products were captured on streptavidin-coated microtiter wells, hybridized with digoxigenin-labeled probes and detected by a highly sensitive luminometric reaction. RESULTS: The method was applied in ten colorectal tumor forceps biopsies and their corresponding normal tissues. Six out of ten tumors were positive for hTERT beta plus transcript whereas none of the corresponding normal tissues were found positive. There was a complete concordance between the hybridization assay and real-time PCR. When the method was applied in peripheral blood of 20 breast cancer patients with metastatic disease and 21 healthy blood donors, 14 patients (70%) were found positive while all 21 healthy blood donors were negative. CONCLUSION: The developed hybridization assay is highly sensitive and specific for the detection of hTERT beta-plus transcript in clinical samples.