Small intestine ultrastructural changes and auranofin treatment in rheumatoid arthritis.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to C Black.
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Systemic sclerosis is a disease which usually progresses or reaches a plateau with persistence of symptoms and signs. Regression is extremely unusual. Four cases of established scleroderma are described in which regression is well documented. The significance of this observation and possible mechanisms of disease regression are discussed.
The purpose of this study was to compare adults raised in an alcoholic home (N = 409) with those adults raised in a nonalcoholic home (N = 179) on their perceptions of alcohol-related differences in the home, violence, sexual abuse, communication, and interpersonal differences experienced as adults. The adults who were raised in alcoholic families reported significantly less utilization of interpersonal resources as a child; had significantly more family disruptions characterized by a higher divorce rate and premature parental and sibling death; reported more emotional and psychological problems in adulthood; experienced more physical and sexual abuse as children; and more frequently became alcoholic and married alcoholics when compared to adults raised in nonalcoholic families.
We have previously reported a genetic susceptibility to a scleroderma-like disorder in a group of workers exposed to polyvinyl chloride and this susceptibility could be mapped to the major histocompatibility complex area of the 6th chromosome. To date no genetic studies have been reported comparing affected with unaffected workers. We report such data and discuss it in the light of our previous findings in vinyl chloride exposed patients and in patients with classical scleroderma. Our results suggest that susceptibility to this disorder is increased in the presence of HLA-DR5 or of a gene in linkage disequilibrium with it and an antigen associated with the haplotype A1 B8, while DR3 favours progression of the disease.
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Adolescence, although not always necessarily a period of extreme stress, is a time of profound physical changes which increase the adolescent's awareness of and interest in sexual behavior. This issue of sexuality, which begins in early adolescence, creates new challenges to personal and gender identity formation as the person matures. Sexual maturation is a three-fold process, requiring growth in understanding of oneself as a sexual being, in the ability to handle interpersonal relationships effectively, and in the capacity to plan behavior in view of future outcomes and present problems. A current concern is that today's adolescents, including early adolescents, may be making important life choices such as parenthood before they are developmentally ready for such roles (Chilman, 1980). This paper deals with pregnancy in adolescents and modes of responding to this phenomenon by those in the counseling and other helping professions.
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Ninety-eight women were entered into an open study of Staycept jelly (octoxynol 1% w/w) and Staycept pessaries (vaginal suppositories) (nonoxynol-9 6% w/w) in combination with other vaginal methods of contraception. Medical problems during use of either pessary or jelly were few and were restricted to genital irritation or increased vaginal discharge. This seemed more common with the pessaries than with the jelly, but this could have been related to the types of women entered. There were no unplanned pregnancies.
Myocardial fibrosis is found at postmortem examination in up to 80% of patient with scleroderma, yet many such patients have an entirely normal cardiovascular examination. Isometric handgrip exercise is a useful abnormality. By this method 15 patients with scleroderma (American Heart Association criteria) were compared with 15 sex and age-matched normals. Results showed that scleroderma patients had a depressed heart rate response to handgrip (p less than 0.05) and abnormal systolic and diastolic time intervals. They showed a decreased shortening of the ratio pre-ejection period to ejection time (p less than 0.05) and a lengthening of the isovolumic relaxation time compared with the control group who steadily shortened this period (p less than 0.01). These findings indicate increased stiffness and impaired contractility of the left ventricle as would be caused by an underlying fibrotic process otherwise undetectable. Immunohistological studies give support to this concept. Staining with monospecific antibodies to collagens types I to V of cardiac muscle from patients who, in life, had no overt cardiac disease, showed an excess deposition of collagens type I, III, and IV. In conclusion isometric exercise may provide a noninvasive method of unmasking subclinical fibrosis of the left ventricle in scleroderma, and immunopathological studies support these findings.
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Cyanogen bromide peptides of bovine collagen Types I, II nad III were analyzed using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Elution patterns of each collagen type were unique and reproducible. Elution patterns of the CNBr peptides of the alpha 1 and alpha 2 chains of Type I collagen were also unique and together accounted for the major components of Type I collagen. Analysis of the eluted peptides from HPLC of each collagen type by sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis showed specific patterns for each collagen. Thus, unique and reproducible HPLC chromatograms were obtained, providing a new analytical method that is simple, sensitive and rapid.
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Phenotypes of alpha1-antitrypsin (A1AT) were determined by isoelectric focusing in blood samples from 926 healthy Caucasians living in South-West England. Three subtypes of the most common allele product (M), designated M1, M2, and M3, were identified. Routine determination of these subtypes should considerably amplify the usefulness of the A1AT polymorphism in population genetics and, in view of the possible association of clinical disorders with heterozygous deficient M phenotypes, may enhance the value of Pi determinations in clinical genetics.
As part of a prospective survey of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) a detailed collaborative study of the clinical, psychiatric, and laboratory features in 15 patients with nonfocal neuropsychiatric disease has been undertaken. In addition to conventional clinical and psychometric evaluation, electroencephalograph, and cerebrospinal fluid analysis, the study included the assessment of cerebral blood flow with oxygen-15 brain scans and serological testing for the presence of antineuronal and lymphocytotoxic antibodies. Of the 15 patients 12 had psychiatric manifestations, while 13 had various neurological abnormalities. All except 2 episodes of cerebral disease were transient. Striking abnormalities in cerebral blood flow and metabolism were seen in 12 patients, even in the presence of subtle clinical features. Sequential scans showed that improvement in clinical features was accompanied by a reversal of scan abnormalities. All sera contained brain-reactive antibody, either antineuronal IgG antibody (13) or lymphocytotoxic IgM antibody (12) or both (10), though there was an inconsistent association between clinical features and antibody titre. It is suggested that transient disturbances of cerebral vascular function in SLE might allow brain-reactive antibodies from the circulation access to cerebral tissue. In this way the nature of the neuropsychiatric abnormalities would depend on both vascular and immunopathogenic mechanisms.
Three aspects of iron metabolism were studies in reticulocytes from iron-deficient, phlebotomized, and phenylhydrazine-treated rats: (1) the number of transferrin binding sites; (2) the uptake of 59Fe-transferrin; and (3) the ability of cytosol to mobilize 59Fe from 59Fe-labeled reticulocyte plasma membrane. The number of transferrin binding sites, assayed by measuring the binding of 125I-labeled transferrin to reticulocytes, were similar in iron-deficient and phlebotomy-induced reticulocytes, 66,000 and 75,000 binding sites/cell, respectively, but were about doubled, 120,000 binding sites/cell, in phenylhydrazine-induced reticulocytes. Uptake of 59Fe into iron-deficient reticulocytes was about one-half that for phlebotomy-induced reticulocytes and one-quarter that for phenylhydrazine-induced reticulocytes, the rates of uptake being measured as 21,540, 41,233, and 79,600 molecules of 59Fe per minute per cell, respectively. The mobilizing activity of cytosol free iron-deficient reticulocytes was also about one-half that of cytosol from phlebotomy-induced reticulocytes and about one-quarter that of cytosol from phenylhydrazine-induced reticulocytes. These results indicate that instead of a compensatory increase in these aspects of iron metabolism, the iron-deficient reticulocyte had a decreased ability to transport iron.
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