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Biomedical subjects

A Kaiser

Publications and source records attributed to A Kaiser.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources
PubMed1988

Protein patterns, serotyping and plasmid DNA profiles in the epidemiologic fingerprinting of Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

The epidemiological typing schemes based on serotyping, antibiotic susceptibility pattern, plasmid DNA profile, and protein patterns determined by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) were evaluated for their usefulness in typing clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The serotypability was lower (45%) than reported in the literature (85-95%). The most commonly found serotypes were O:1 (19%), O:11 (25%), O:6 (35%). The electrophoretic analysis of plasmid DNAs showed plasmids (molecular weight = 1 to greater than 40 megadaltons). Two plasmids of Mr 2 and 38 megadaltons were found in various serotypes. The restriction enzyme analysis of plasmid DNA showed identical DNA fragment patterns among distinct serotypes. The SDS-PAGE protein banding patterns of whole-cell proteins showed homogeneity among the strains. However, analysis of the soluble protein patterns of the strains showed sufficiently distinct protein profiles that can be used to differentiate between various strains. The results of this study demonstrate that the electrophoretic patterns of soluble proteins, in combination with plasmid DNA profile or serotyping, can be of value in the epidemiologic fingerprinting of clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Anti-Bacterial Agents↗
PubMed1988

Effects of high doses of diethylcarbamazine on adult Onchocerca volvulus examined by the collagenase technique and by histology.

Thirty adult male nodule carriers from a hyperendemic onchocerciasis area in the Liberian rain forest were treated with high doses of diethylcarbamazine (30 mg/kg/d) over one week. Another ten patients received placebo tablets and served as a control. All detectable nodules were removed from half of the patients at two months and from the remaining patients at ten months after chemotherapy. The adult worms in the nodules were examined for pathological alterations by the collagenase technique including embryogram, and by histology. No macrofilaricidal effect was observed at either time, and no significant reduction of microfilariae in the uteri of the female worms or in the tissue of the nodules was seen. Two months after the therapy there was a significant increase of degenerated stretched intrauterine microfilariae but this effect was no longer observed after ten months. No pathological effect was seen on the intrauterine coiled microfilariae. On the contrary, their number had significantly increased after ten months which could mean a stimulation of the embryogenesis. No effect on spermatogenesis was observed. Both techniques, the collagenase digestion and the histological examination of the nodules, provided similar results to demonstrate that there was no marked long lasting effect on O. volvulus after a treatment with high doses of diethylcarbamazine.

Animals↗
PubMed1988

Histological examination of onchocercomata after therapy with ivermectin.

During chemotherapy trials in hyperendemic onchocerciasis areas in West Africa 15 adult nodule carriers in Liberia and 24 patients in Mali received single doses of ivermectin (150 or 200 micrograms/kg). Nodules were extirpated two, six and ten months after therapy and examined histologically. No macrofilaricidal effect of ivermectin was observed. Two months after therapy, in 93% of all female worms with intrauterine stretched microfilariae nearly all microfilariae were degenerated. The percentage was lower after ten months but still significantly higher than in untreated control groups. Ivermectin did not cause degeneration of the intrauterine coiled microfilariae. But the percentage of the female worms with coiled microfilariae was significantly lower two and ten months after therapy than that in the placebo or untreated control groups. Correspondingly, the percentage of nodules with intact microfilariae in the nodule tissue was also significantly lower throughout the examination period than that of the untreated control groups. There was not observed any effect on the spermatogenesis and spermatozoa were found frequently in the uteri of female worms. Using the method of histology, the long lasting inhibitory effect of a single dose of ivermectin on the intrauterine production of microfilariae could clearly be demonstrated. This proves the value of histology for the assessment of drug effects on adult O. volvulus.

Animals↗
PubMed1988

Chemotherapy of onchocerciasis with high doses of diethylcarbamazine or a single dose of ivermectin: microfilaria levels and side effects.

Fifty adult male subjects with moderate to heavy onchocerciasis from the Liberian rain forest were selected for a double-blind placebo-controlled chemotherapy study. The effects of high doses of diethylcarbamazine (DEC) - 30 mg/kg/d - over one week preceded by a one week initial treatment with normal oral doses of DEC or DEC lotion were compared with a single dose of ivermectin (150 micrograms/kg) and placebo. During the initial treatment DEC tablets or lotion caused distinctly more frequent and severe reactions than did invermectin. The reactions to ivermectin did not differ from those of the placebo patients. High doses of DEC caused, in about half of the patients, headache, dizziness, nausea or vomiting. DEC markedly increased the number of corneal microfilariae and of corneal opacities compared to ivermectin. All changes resolved with a return to pretreatment findings two months after treatment. The three treatment groups showed no differences at the ten months follow-up. In all treated patients skin microfilaria counts fell almost to zero by the end of the two week therapy. In the ivermectin group microfilaria counts remained significantly lower than in the DEC patients at the two and ten months examinations. In summary, ivermectin was much better tolerated than DEC and had a longer lasting effect on the microfilariae in the skin. Since high doses of DEC were less effective and caused more frequent and severe side effects, this approach cannot be recommended for treatment of onchocerciasis.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Developmental stability of the tonotopic organization of the chick's basilar papilla.

In the past, the damage patterns produced on the papilla of the chick by loud pure tones of different frequencies have been used to study the development of sound analysis by the hair cells of the basilar papilla. One conclusion from these data was that the best response frequency of individual hair cells changes substantially with age. However, this method has been criticized as unreliable. Now experiments have been performed in which single characterized nerve fibers were stained with horseradish peroxidase to permit the unequivocal localization of specific frequency responses in the papillae of chicks of different ages (2 and 21 days after hatching). There was no statistically significant change in the tonotopic organization of the papilla between the two groups of animals.

Aging↗
PubMed1987

Factors influencing the phagocytosis of Clostridium difficile by human polymorphonuclear leukocytes.

Phagocytosis of Clostridium difficile by human polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNs) and the possible role of the clostridial toxins in this process were investigated. Phagocytosis of C. difficile was independent of aerobiosis and clearly depended on opsonization. Either complement or antibodies to C. difficile could serve as opsonins. Toxigenic strains of C. difficile were more resistant to phagocytosis than were nontoxigenic strains. Pretreatment of PMNs with as much as 10,000 units of toxins from culture filtrates of C. difficile for 2 h had no effect on either the phagocytic activity of PMNs or their viability as determined by trypan blue exclusion. In contrast, treatment of human embryonic intestinal cells with the same amount of toxin under identical conditions resulted in cell death.

Aerobiosis↗
PubMed1987

Pericarditis in the course of acute leukemia.

Among 140 patients with acute leukemia (AL) diagnosed according to FAB criteria, pericarditis was diagnosed clinically in 5 of them. They were 2 women and 3 men with different types of AL (L2-in one, M2-in one, M3-in one and M4-in two persons). It occurred in one patient at the onset of the disease and was associated with hyperuricemia, in another one--in complete remission, in the third--during partial remission, and in remaining two patients--during induction therapy. In all patients pericarditis was manifested by fever up to 38-40 degrees C, tachycardia and pericardial friction, in 3-heart silhouettes were enlarged. The ECG revealed mainly depression of ST segments. In 1 case only ECG pattern was typical of pericarditis. Clinically the symptoms of right ventricle failure predominated in 3 and of septic shock--in 2 patients. The etiologic factors were: Pseudomonas aeruginosa 2 X, Enterobacter cloacae 1 X, tuberculosis infection 1 X and hyperuricemia and Enterobacter sepsis 1 X. Pericarditis was favourably influenced by treatment with antibiotics, cardiaca and diuretics in 4 patients. One patient died of a sepsis. In no case the patient's death was attributable to pericarditis. The results of postmortem examinations in 79 cases of AL has revealed three additional cases of pericarditis due to tuberculosis infection, Staphylococcus aureus sepsis and aspergillosis.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1987

The use of diethylcarbamazine cream in the diagnosis of onchocerciasis.

Topical application of diethylcarbamazine (DEC) cream was tested as a method of diagnosis in patients with onchocerciasis. Approximately 5 ml of DEC cream (10% w/v) was rubbed into an 8 cm area of skin over the buttocks and the patient reexamined one day later. Twenty-nine patients with varying levels of infection were tested, and the sensitivity of the test was found to be 30.1% compared to standard skin snip assessment. It was not possible to quantify the degree of infection with the DEC cream skin test. It is concluded that the topical application of DEC is not a useful method for diagnosis of onchocerciasis in the field.

Administration, Topical↗
PubMed1985

Predictive value of cranial ultrasound in the newborn baby: a reappraisal.

During a 36-month period 435 babies of 34 weeks' gestation or less were regularly scanned with ultrasound. A large periventricular/intraventricular haemorrhage developed in 40 babies, and extensive cystic leucomalacia developed in 10. The neurodevelopmental outcome and the frequency of handicap in these 2 groups were compared. 9 of the 18 survivors with a large haemorrhage were found to be completely normal and only 2 showed a major handicap. However, severe cerebral palsy with mental retardation developed in all the survivors with extensive cystic leucomalacia, and 4 of the 7 babies were also cortically blind. These findings suggest that the size of the haemorrhage is not a good predictor of outcome, but that severe cystic leucomalacia is associated with a very poor prognosis.

Brain↗
PubMed1984

Post-parathyroidectomy restoration of normal calcium homeostasis in neonatal primary hyperparathyroidism.

Total parathyroidectomy is required to cure neonatal primary hyperparathyroidism (NPH) as any parathyroid remnant quickly becomes hyperplastic, causing recurrent hypercalcaemia. We present a patient with NPH who had total removal of his eutopic parathyroid glands but continued to have parathyroid hormone secretion from presumed ectopic parathyroid tissue. Hypercalcaemia initially recurred but normal calcium homeostasis was established as the child grew older. We postulate that the underlying defect in NPH is decreased sensitivity to the serum ionic calcium feedback inhibition at the parathyroid receptor level and that this sensitivity can improve with age.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1984

Causes of early death in adult acute leukaemia.

The causes of early deaths (12 weeks from diagnosis) were analyzed in 41 patients, i.e. 29% of total acute leukemia material, hospitalized 1976-1981. The most common cause of death was infection, mainly pneumonia and septicaemia, infection and haemorrhagic diathesis or haemorrhagic diathesis alone. In 3 patients suddenly dead, large brain infiltrations were found. Analysis of prognostic factors revealed significantly higher leukocyte count and significantly lower platelet count in the peripheral blood than in the control group of acute myeloid leukemia patients.

Adult↗
PubMed1981

Phosphorylation of threonine in the proline-rich carboxy-terminal region of simian virus 40 large T antigen.

The position of phosphothreonine in the predicted primary structure of simian virus 40 large T antigen was determined by different methods. After digestion of large T antigen with trypsin and subsequent two-dimensional peptide mapping, a single peptide containing phosphothreonine could be separated from the bulk of phosphoserine-containing peptides. Its amino acid composition was determined by differential labeling with various amino acids in vivo. The high yield of proline (4.5 mol) within the phosphothreonine peptide indicated that it was derived from the carboxy terminus of large T antigen and had in its unphosphorylated form the sequence Lys-Pro-Pro-Thr-Pro-Pro-Pro-Glu-Pro-Glu-Thr-COOH. A phosphopeptide generated by chymotrypsin could be converted into the tryptic phosphothreonine peptide, indicating that the latter was part of the chymotryptic peptide. The origin of the phosphothreonine-containing peptides was independently confirmed by using an antiserum directed against the carboxy terminus of large T antigen. This serum reacted specifically with the proline-rich, phosphothreonine-containing peptides. Further analysis by partial acid hydrolysis indicated that the internal threonine was phosphorylated. The unusual amino acid composition on both sides of the phosphothreonine and the possible function of this phosphorylation site are discussed.

Amino Acid Sequence↗
PubMed1981

Studies on phagocytosis in leukaemia. III. Phagocytosis inhibiting factor in sera of leukaemic patients.

The role of serum factors on the phagocytic activity and intracellular killing of bacteria in separated peripheral granulocytes has been studied in acute leukaemia. Examinations were made in 30 patients, using Staphylococcus aureus. It was found that in 1/3 of cases the impairment of the phagocytic process was due to the adverse effect of serum components on granulocytes. In 50% of cases a defect of granulocytes was observed. Among the 15 cases of acute leukaemia with impaired phagocytic process, a serum factor inhibiting mainly intracellular killing of bacteria could be demonstrated in 7. Its level was found to be low; the inhibiting factor displayed its action in 10% serum concentration and could not be shown at further serum dilutions. 5 sera were deficient in factors which promote opsonizing and intracellular killing. In some sera this deficiency was parallel to the activity of the inhibiting factor. Five sera showed normal properties promoting, opsonizing, and intracellular killing.

Acute Disease↗
PubMed1981

Acute toxicity testing of some herbicides-, alkaloids-, and antibiotics-metabolizing soil bacteria in the rat.

Seven strains of soil bacteria with the ability to metabolize herbicides, alkaloids or antibiotics were tested in rats for acute toxicity. 1. Upon oral administration of 9.0 x 10(8) to 6.6 x 10(10) cells daily during 7 d no adverse reactions were observed. 2. Exposure by air did not lead to specific pulmonary changes. 3. Intracutaneous injection of 7.5 x 10(6) to 1.4 x 10(8) cells did not lead to adverse skin reactions. 4. Intraperitoneal injections up to 10(8) cells per animal did not kill rats although bacteria entered blood. At higher concentrations some mortality occurred partly due to unspecific stress reactions. 5. Animal data and observations on 20 humans being exposed to these strains for 2 months up to 15 years support the view that the bacteria tested are essentially harmless for health.

Adult↗