A significant proportion (31%) of normotensive patients with acute PE presents with RV dysfunction; these patients with latent hemodynamic impairment have a 10% rate of PE-related shock and 5% in-hospital mortality and may require aggressive therapeutic strategies. Conversely, normotensive patients without echocardiographic RV dysfunction have a benign short-term prognosis. Thus, early detection of echocardiographic RV dysfunction is of major importance in the risk stratification of normotensive patients with acute PE.

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We describe the content and properties of UV source catalogs from GALEX's All-Sky Imaging Survey (AIS, 5σ depth ≈19.9(FUV)/20.8(NUV) mag, in the AB system) and Medium-depth Imaging Survey (MIS, 5σ depth ≈22.6(FUV)/22.7(NUV) mag), constructed by Bianchi L., et al.: Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. (2010, in press). The catalogs contain 65.3/12.6 million (AIS/MIS) unique UV sources with photometric error in NUV less than 0.5 mag, over 21 435(AIS)/1579(MIS) square degrees. Matched optical data from GSC-II provide additional B, R, I photometry for the brightest sources, and SDSS provides u g r i z photometry over 7325(AIS)/1103(MIS) square degrees overlap areas. We discuss statistical properties that are relevant for understanding sample selection biases and completeness, in potential science applications of these catalogs. The FUV (1344-1786 Å) and NUV (1771-2831 Å) photometry uniquely enable selection of the hottest stellar objects, in particular hot white dwarfs (WD), which are elusive at optical wavelengths because of their hot temperatures and faint luminosities. From the GALEX-SDSS matched sources we

Objective: To conduct an epidemiological study on pheochromocytoma in Italy. Methods: Data on 284 patients with pheochromocytoma observed between 1978 and 1997 were collected from 18 Italian centers through a questionnaire reporting epidemiological, clinical, laboratory, radiological and surgical data. Results: 53.6% of the patients were females and 46.4% were males. Thirty-two tumors were discovered as incidental adrenal masses. The most frequent referred symptoms were palpitations (58.1%), headache (51.9%), sweating (48.8%) and anxiety (35.3%). Their association was present only in 15.5% of patients. Paroxysmal symptoms were reported in 67.1% and hypertensive crises in 59.7% of patients. Normal blood pressure (systolic and diastolic) was present both in the supine and upright positions in 21.1% of patients. Among laboratory assays, urinary vanylmandelic acid (VMA) was the most widely used (58.1%) and was the least sensitive (25% of false negative results). Basal plasma catecholamines were found to be normal in 11.3% of patients but were always elevated when sampled during a hypertensive paroxysm. A clonidine suppression test was performed in 38 patients with no adverse side effects. It gave a false negative response in 2 patients. A glucagon test was performed in 21 patients. It was interrupted for acute hypertension in 52.4% of patients. Only 5/21 patients were normotensive and had normal basal plasma catecholamines. In these patients the test gave a positive response in four (80%). CT (79.6%) and I-MIBG scintigraphy (68.5%) were the most widely used methods for tumor localization. CT sensitivity was 98.9% for intra-adrenal and 90.9% for extraadrenal tumors. MIBG sensitivity was 88.5%. In the 263 patients who underwent surgery, the tumor was intra-adrenal in 89.4%, extra-adrenal in 8.5%, intra-and extra-adrenal in 2.1%, and bilateral in 11.0% of patients. Malignancy was reported in 9.9% of cases. Surgery caused remission of hypertension in 59.3%, improvement in 26.8%, and no changes in 13.9% of patients. In the last group the interval between initial symptoms and diagnosis was significantly longer. Conclusions: The present study confirms that the clinical presentation of pheochromocytoma is variable and aspecific. Normotension is often present and often the tumor is discovered incidentally. An indication for the routine use of screening methods more sensitive than urinary VMA is strongly suggested. The clonidine test was found to be safe and should be preferred to the glucagon test which has to be restricted to very selected patients. CT and MIBG scintigraphy are almost always successful in localizing the tumor. Reversal of hypertension by surgery seems to depend on an early diagnosis. European Journal of Endocrinology 141 619-624Introduction Pheochromocytoma (pheo) is a rare tumor arising from the chromaffin tissue. It causes hypertension in about 0.1% of hypertensive patients and presents itself with a highly variable clinical picture (1-7). These two characteristics (rarity and variability) render ...

The Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) has performed the first surveys of the sky in the Ultraviolet (UV). Its legacy is an unprecedented database with more than 200 million source measurements in far-UV (FUV) and near-UV (NUV), as well as wide-field imaging of extended objects, filling an important gap in our view of the sky across the electromagnetic spectrum. The UV surveys offer unique sensitivity for identifying and studying selected classes of astrophysical objects, both stellar and extra-galactic. We examine the overall content and distribution of UV sources over the sky, and with magnitude and color. For this purpose, we have constructed final catalogs of UV sources with homogeneous quality, eliminating duplicate measurements of the same source. Such catalogs can facilitate a variety of investigations on UV-selected samples, as well as planning of observations with future missions. We describe the criteria used to build the catalogs, their coverage and completeness. We included observations in which both the far-UV and near-UV detectors were exposed; 28,707 fields from the All-Sky Imaging survey (AIS) cover a unique area of 22,080 square degrees (after we restrict the catalogues to the central 1 deg diameter of the field), with a typical depth of ∼20/21 mag (FUV/NUV, in the AB mag system), and 3,008 fields from the ✩ The catalogs presented in this paper are accessible on line.Medium-depth Imaging Survey (MIS) cover a total of 2,251 square degrees at a depth of ∼22.7mag. The catalogs contain ∼71 and ∼16.6 million sources respectively. The density of hot stars reflects the Galactic structure, and the number counts of both Galactic and extra-galactic sources are modulated by the Milky Way dust extinction, to which the UV data are very sensitive.