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Biomedical subjects

D Harms

Publications and source records attributed to D Harms.

At least 217 records · Page 12Linked to original sources

Uric acid infarctions in the kidneys of newborn infants. A study on the changing incidence and on oxypurine ratios.

Among 1115 newborns who died during 1957--1976, 136 (12.2%) showed macroscopic renal uric acid infarctions. The incidence depended on the age of the infants and their fluid supply during the first days of life. After introduction of parenteral alkali-glucose infusion in the treatment of perinatal complications, the incidence of renal uric acid infarctions decreased from 19.3% to less than 1.0%. Analysis of the oxypurines in the renal uric acid infarctions of three newborns revealed high percentages of hypoxanthine (31.1%, 21.8% and 11.0%) along with the uric acid. Hypoxanthine ratios above 15% retrospectively point to chronic hypoxia of the newborn.

Age Factors↗

Ethanolaminosis. A newly recognized, generalized storage disease with cardiomegaly, cerebral dysfunction and early death.

A storage disease with cardiomegaly, generalized muscular hypotonia, cerebral dysfunction, failure to thrive and early death is described in two siblings. The first one died at the age of 10 months, the second at the age of 17 months. The symptoms were mainly due to lysosomal storage of a substance which had a positive reaction to PAS and Best's stain and which was resistant to diastase. This substance was stored in nearly all the organs, especially in the heart, liver, spleen and less in the brain and skeletal muscles. An increased renal excretion of ethanolamine, a greatly increased hepatic concentration of ethanolamine and diminished hepatic ethanolamine kinase activity could be demonstrated. Ethanolamine is essential for the synthesis of phospholipids. Both parents showed increased renal excretion of taurine. In several aspects, this syndrome is similar to the glycogenosis type II described by Pompe.

Brain Chemistry↗

[Neonatal paresis of the radial nerve due to benign angioleiomyoma (author's transl)].

Report on a newborn with left-sided radial paresis due to a solitary angioleiomyoma in the lateral distal third of the upper arm. The literature does not disclose that this rare benign tumor can produce radial palsy. A palpable soft-part tumor in the new born suggests malignancy. The tumor including the atrophic radial nerve was radically excised. When histology proved it to be benign, a nerve graft with the sural nerve was carried out. After 6 months of electrical and physiotherapeutic treatment partial radial function had returned. In differential diagnosis of radial palsy of the neonate, birthtrauma is a likely cause. Tumors as a cause are rare and are found almost exclusively in adults, due to lipoma, neuroma or ganglia. In the neonate the socalled "idiopathic" radial paresis does not occur and in adults is usually due to the "supinator syndrome".

Arm↗

Congenital hemihypertrophy and malignant giant pheochromocytoma - a previously undescribed coincidence.

This is apparently the first report on connatal hemihypertrophy with malignant pheochromocytoma. The coincidence of hemihypertrophy with other diseases, particularly neuroectodermal dysplasias on the one hand and the frequent association of neuroectodermal dysplasias with pheochromocytoma on the other, are emphasized. Furthermore, basically known particularities of this case as malignancy of the tumor, the unusual size of the tumor in children, and the normal catecholamine levels in serum as well as the normal excretion of vanillylmandelic acid are discussed.

Adolescent↗

[Experimental studies on proteolysis of hyaline membranes in vitro (author's transl)].

The incubation of lung tissue from premature infants with pulmonary hyaline membranes in fibrinolysis activating or fibrinolytically active solutions gave the following results. With streptokinase it was not possible to dissolve hyaline membranes (verification of the physiological lack of plasminogen in premature infants). The mean content of membranes after 24 hours showed to be 18.14 +/- 12.43% which almost corresponded to the control value of 20.24 +/- 10.54% after incubation in NaCl-solution. In comparison, solutions of plasmin, plasmin-activator or activator prepared from proactivator-plasminogen through activation with streptokinase led to a clear reduction in the membrane content, i.e. 11.00 +/- 6.50, 13.89 +/- 9.72, and 13.63 +/- 8.94%, respectively. A decrease in membranes equally strong to that after plasmin appeared after incubation for only 12 hours in trypsin (11.09 +/- 8.62%). Plasmin, plasmin-activator, and activator, but not streptokinase alone, caused also a considerable nonspecific proteolysis of the lung parenchyma which was equal to the trypsin effect, for example, with an only half as long incubation time. Since the lungs of premature infants contain the tissue activator of fibrinolysis we discuss the suggestion of Ambrus et al. (1974) to administer an injection of plasminogen to premature infants immediately after birth so that a spontaneous fibrinolysis can be favoured for developing hyaline membranes.

Chymotrypsin↗

[Pneumonia as a cause of death in children (author's transl)].

The yearly death-rate from pneumonia in children aged one month to 15 years has fallen in Schleswig-Holstein from 1.8 (1954-1958) to 0.6 per ten thousand (1969-1973). At the same time, total death-rate in the same age group has fallen from 14.5 to 9.3 per ten thousand children. The proportion of pneumonia in the total death-rate was 5.3% in 1971-1973, 1.6% in the first month of life and, after the sixteenth year, 2.3%. Pneumonia was in fourth place (after accident, malformation and neoplasm) as a cause of death in those more than one month old. The death-rate due to pneumonia had not fallen between 1954 and 1973, varying between 10% and 12%. While death-rate of "primary" pneumonia (without other underlying disease) had fallen from 5.7% (1954-1958) to 1.1% (1969-1973), the death-rate of "secondary" pneumonia rose from 16.8% to 21.4% during the same period. The total number of children aged between two months and 15 years treated for pneumonia fell by two thirds from 1954-1973 (1245 to 406). The incidence of "primary" pneumonia during the same period fell to about a quarter, that of "secondary" pneumonia to one half. The unsatisfactory result in the treatment of "secondary" pneumonia is probably due to the underlying primary disease or a weakening of defence mechanisms by treatment or the occurrence of unusual causative organisms (pneumocystis carinii, tubercle bacilli, Candida, Aspergillus), demonstrated only after death.

Adolescent↗

Comparative quantitation of immunoglobulin G (IgG) in cerebrospinal fluid and serum of children.

Report on quantitation of IgG in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and serum of 84 children at different ages. A relation was shown between the content of IgG in CSF and serum depending on age. The decrease of the ratio CSF-IgG/serum-IgG as well as of the total protein in the CSF during the first trimenon points out a post-partal impediment of the diffusion from the blood to the CSF compartment. Beyond the first year of life the ratio of the concentrations mostly remains constant. Measurements in 135 children suffering from several neurological diseases showed that quantitation of IgG is of value only in case of suspicion of encephalitis with local synthesis of IgG.

Adolescent↗

[Sialadenosis as secondary organ manifestation of anorexia nervosa (author's transl)].

In a 13-year-old boy the occurence of a sialadenosis of the submaxillary glands was observed in association with anorexia nervosa (a.n.). The non-inflammatory salivary gland enlargement became apparent after the boy had suffered a progressive weight loss of 5 kilograms during a period of three years prior to admission. The psychogenic origin of the disorder could be confirmed by 1. the history of the patient being almost identical compared to the few observations of a.n. in males, 2. the absence of any other organ involvement, and 3. follow up over a period of two years during which time the boy regained normal weight, and the salivary gland enlargement disappeared spontaneously. The diagnosis of sialadenosis was based on histological examination.

Acute Disease↗

[The diagnostic value of cytology of the CSF (author's transl)].

Cytological examination of cerebrospinal fluid needs special techniques of cell collecting and staining. On condition of realizing the methodical requirements cytology of the cerebrospinal fluid brings more advancement in diagnostics than other laboratory examinations. The advantages of this procedure are: 1. Meningitis, meningoencephalitis, and subarachnoidal hemorrhage can be immediately diagnosed by cytological examination of the cerebrospinal fluid. In cases of encephalitis cytological findings depend on the extend of the inflammatory process and its distance from the cerebrospinal fluid compartement. Absence of tumor cells in preparations of cerebrospinal fluid cannot exclude primary or secundary brain tumors. 2. Cytological examination enables a better insight into the dynamics of cellular reactions proceeding in the cerebrospinal fluid as well as in its enlining tissues.

Brain Neoplasms↗

[Sialadenitis in a boy with anorexia nervosa].

Isolated sialadenosis of both sumandibular glands and anorexia nervosa are clinical pictures found extremely seldom in boys. This paper describes a case with symptomless enlarged submandibular glands, the bioptic findings which were suggesting the diagnosis of sialadenosis, the verification of the underlying disorder by child psychiatry, and the recuperation of the boy during puberty.

Adolescent↗