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Biomedical subjects

A Russo

Publications and source records attributed to A Russo.

At least 541 records · Page 30Linked to original sources

[Paralysis of the 3d cranial nerve caused by a megadolicho-basilar artery].

The authors report on one patient with palsy of left third cranial nerve. An angiographic study and C.T. show a megadolicho-basilar and an ectasia of the left middle cerebral artery in its M1 tract. The patient had a positivity of the T.P.H.A. test without clinic evidence of the syphilis in the anamnesis. In the discussion the authors, then, explain the elements that support the hypothesis of the pathogenic correlation between the luetic infection and the morphological arterial alterations of the patient. At last the authors summarize the clinical signs than more frequently had been found in the cases of megadolicho-basilar described in the literature.

Basilar Artery↗

[Acute abdominal pain in diabetic ketoacidosis, the possible cause of diagnostic error. Review of 3 clinical cases].

Abdominal pain may lead the surgeon into diagnostic error. In diabetic patients diagnosis may be particularly difficult. In the presence of metabolic disorders with ketoacidosis the abdominal pain may not be surgically relevant but caused by the metabolic and electrolytic disorder. Differential diagnosis is as important as it is difficult. A short review of three cases reveals the probable clinical picture. The pathogenesis of the abdominal pain arising in ketoacidosis is yet to be clarified but a combined metabolic and electrolytic origin is hypothesised.

Abdomen↗

Personality profiles of hospitalized pathological gamblers: the California Personality Inventory.

Studies of the personality of the pathological gambler have consisted primarily of case reports and findings on the MMPI. This article presents data on a sample of 70 pathological gamblers, 70 alcoholics in treatment, and 70 medical/surgical controls on the California Personality Inventory (CPI). Gamblers and alcoholics differed significantly from hospitalized controls on a number of scales, particularly on measures of socialization, ego control, and flexibility. Differences between the gamblers and alcoholics were few, with a trend for the alcoholics to be similar to the gamblers and intermediate between the other two groups. Implications for the treatment of the pathological gambler are discussed.

Adult↗

Population structure of Sicily: beta-thalassemia and HbS.

The population structure of two alleles with similar characteristics, HbS and beta-thalassemia, was studied in the same area in Sicily. It was observed that beta-thalassemia has uniform frequencies over the island, and that HbS shows a South-North cline. A singularity exists for HbS in the town of Butera, where the frequency of the S gene is six times higher than the island average. It was suggested that HbS entered Sicily from Greece (or directly from North Africa) when the beta-thalassemia allele was already established in the Island.

Alleles↗

Sporadic cases in Duchenne muscular dystrophy. A reappraisal through segregation analysis on 988 sibships.

A new estimation of the proportion of sporadic cases in Duchenne muscular dystrophy was attempted by means of segregation analysis in a sample of 988 sibships collected on a world-wide scale by different authors. Maximum likelihood estimates of ascertainment probability (pi), segregation frequency (p), and frequency of sporadic cases (x) were calculated by Morton's equations under different hypotheses. The best fit was found for p = 0.454 +/- 0.024 and x = 0.235 +/- 0.034. The possibility that the proportion of sporadic cases might be lower than the expected 1/3 is suggested.

Gene Frequency↗

Meiotic non-disjunction induced by fission neutrons relative to X-rays observed in mouse secondary spermatocytes. II. Dose-effect relationships after treatment of pachytene cells.

(C57B1/Cne X C3H/Cne)F1 male mice were irradiated with single acute doses of 0.4 MeV neutrons (from 0.11 to 0.72 Gy) or 250 kV X-rays (from 0.25 to 3 Gy) and sacrificed 5 days later. Chromosome preparations of secondary spermatocytes, irradiated at the stage of pachytene, were analysed and the incidence of hyper-haploidies and chromosome fragments was recorded. Data on numerical aberrations were fitted by highly significant linear relationships for both types of radiation. A relative biological effectiveness (RBE) value of 5.65 was estimated by the ratio between the slopes of the two regression lines. The same linear fitting was applied to frequencies of cells with fragments, even if in this case other types of functions could not be excluded. An RBE value was estimated in the same way as for numerical aberrations and yielded a comparable figure of 5.23. A significant correlation was also found between the incidence of numerical and structural aberrations, which points to the chromosome itself as the prevalent target for radiation-induced non-disjunction (ND). In addition, the highly significant linearity of the dose-effect relationship observed for the induction of aneuploidies suggests, as the simplest hypothesis, a single-hit mechanism of radiation action, possibly through pre-non-disjunctional damage to the centromeric region, rather than an indirect induction of segregational difficulties after primarily induced chromatid interchanges.

Aneuploidy↗

Distribution of diphenylhydantoin in the brain during experimental status epilepticus of the cat.

The distribution of diphenylhydantoin (PHT) (40 mg/kg i.p.) in the brain was investigated in cats with convulsive generalized (group 1) and focal penicillin-induced status epilepticus (group 2), and in controls. A significant increase in the amount of PHT entering the brain during the convulsive status was found, with peak brain levels at 45 min (12 +/- 3.2 micrograms/g vs. 6.0 +/- 0.8 in normal cats, P less than 0.05). In the focal status brain concentrations of PHT reached levels intermediate between controls and group 1 cats. At 15 min, elevated blood levels of the drug were paralleled by increased concentrations in the brain, whereas at 30 and 45 min other factors, such as changes in cerebral blood flow, cerebral pH, vascular resistance, metabolic derangement and blood-brain barrier disruption were presumably responsible for the altered brain PHT uptake. The relevance of these data to clinical practice is discussed, in relation to the treatment of human status epilepticus and the potentially neurotoxic effects of the drug.

Animals↗

The surgical management of childhood cholesteatoma.

The results of treatment of 124 cases of childhood cholesteatoma are reported in the present study and compared with an adult group of patients. Intact canal wall tympanoplasty was performed in over 90 per cent of cases in children and the procedure was staged in nearly 80 per cent of cases. The children had a 43.8 per cent incidence of residual cholesteatoma and an 8.8 per cent incidence of recurrent cholesteatoma in intact canal wall tympanoplasty cases. Intact canal wall tympanoplasty remains the technique of choice in our hands for the treatment of childhood cholesteatoma; pre-planned staging of the operation is mandatory for the detection and elimination of residual cholesteatoma which occurs more frequently in children.

Adolescent↗

Leukocyte alkaline phosphatase (LAP). A useful marker of zinc status in beta-thalassemic patients.

Intensive desferrioxamine treatment may negatively affect zinc stores in thalassemic patients. Two groups of young thalassemic patients, with good and poor compliance to desferrioxamine treatment, and a control group were investigated. Leukocyte alkaline phosphatase (LAP), zinc content in neutrophils, plasma zinc levels, and urinary zinc excretion were determined. LAP score, and neutrophil zinc and plasma zinc levels of the good compliance patients were statistically lower than those seen in the controls and in the poor compliance patients. Urinary zinc excretion was statistically higher in good compliance patients than in controls and poor compliance patients only during high-dose intravenous desferrioxamine. On the contrary, poor compliance patients had LAP scores, neutrophil zinc, plasma zinc, and urinary zinc excretion values within the normal range. We conclude that high-dose desferrioxamine produces a reduction of zinc stores in thalassemic patients. LAP scores determinations, which are a reliable and inexpensive marker of body zinc, could become a routine test for monitoring thalassemic patients undergoing hypertransfusion programs.

Adolescent↗

Some aspects of neurotoxicity associated with central nervous system prophylaxis in childhood leukemia.

Late effects of central nervous system (CNS) prophylaxis with cranial radiation (CR) and intrathecal chemotherapy encompass a broad spectrum of phenomena, ranging from fatal leukoencephalopathy to subclinical dysfunctions. Therefore, we studied 55 asymptomatic children with leukemia or solid tumors by means of visual-evoked potentials (VEP) in order to detect subclinical demyelination of the optic pathway after CNS prophylaxis. Ten of the 11 patients showed increased VEP latency after CR with 1,800 cGy, as compared with previous values. One third of our 34 children treated months to years before the study, with 2,400 cGy CR also showed increased VEP latency which was normal in children treated with intrathecal methotrexate only. Growth hormone secretion was investigated using sequential arginine (ARG) and insulin (INS) tolerance tests in 7 leukemic children treated with 1,800 cGy CR. At diagnosis all patients were responsive to both tests; after CNS prophylaxis, 2 patients were still responsive to ARG and INS, whereas the other 5 were responsive to ARG test only. These results are at variance with our previous experience in a series of 22 children treated with 2,400 cGy CR where 2 patients responded to ARG only and 5 did not respond to either stimulus. These data indicate that, even after a reduction of the CR dose, CNS prophylaxis is still associated with subclinical dysfunctions.

Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols↗