ISSN:
1524-475X
Source:
Blackwell Publishing Journal Backfiles 1879-2005
Topics:
Medicine
Notes:
During the past 5 years, progress in the treatment of pressure ulcers appears to have reached a plateau. Several factors in the design of recent clinical studies may have contributed to this situation. These factors include the criteria chosen for patient selection, small sample size, and lack of a concisely defined final clinical outcome. Hunt noted that wound stratification according to a patient's physiological characteristics may be a key to quantifying differences among clinical treatments.1To address this issue, we examined the expression of cyclin D/cdk4 in pressure ulcer fibroblasts taken from tissues during a recent clinical trial. The treatment groups included patients treated with the following regimens: placebo, granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor alone, basic fibroblast growth factor alone, or granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor and basic fibroblast growth factor given in sequence.2 Immunocytochemical colocalization of cyclin D and cdk4 showed that, before the initial treatment began, patients were distributed disproportionately among treatment subgroups in regards to the initial expression of these markers. For example, we found that compared with other subgroups, ulcer fibroblasts in the basic fibroblast growth factor treatment group showed a much lower expression of cyclin D/cdk4 at day 0. However, this group exhibited higher levels of expression of this complex after 35 days of treatment. This study shows that measurement of cyclin D/cdk4 expression permits more accurate stratification of patients within treatment subgroups, measurement of a cell's ability to detect the presence of functional cytokines, identification of area(s) of failure within the G1 of the cell cycle, and a basis for critical evaluation of various treatments. (WOUND REP REG 2003;11:11–18)
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.1524-475X.2003.11104.x
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