Home care: images and reflections.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to D J Roy.
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Fibrothorax is a common clinical condition found in everyday clinical practice. The clinical horizon of fibrothorax can be differentiated into pleural and lung parenchymal fibrosis. The two groups can be differentiated clinically and also by investigations. A thorough understanding of the process gives one better knowledge as to their different aetiologies, presentations and prognoses. The nature of prevention of this meance varies in these types. Patient's drug compliance status is important in preventing primary lung parenchymal fibrosis whereas physician's adequate care for pleural drainage is important in the prevention of pleural fibrosis. In this prospective study, observations were made on (1) the clinical presentation of 100 cases of fibrothorax and its relation to the primary disease, (2) aetiological distribution of the cases of fibrothorax and (3) scope of prevention, if any.
Advance rate planning is a process whereby a patient, in consultation with health care providers, family members and important others, makes decisions about his or her future health care. Grounded in the ethical principle of autonomy and the legal doctrine of consent, advance care planning helps to ensure that the norm of consent is respected should the patient become incapable of participating in treatment decisions. Physicians can play an important role by informing patients about advance care planning directing them to appropriate resources, counselling them as they engage in advance care planning and helping them to tailor advance directives to their prognosis.
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In this issue (see pages 561 to 566 two case reports by Lorne J. Brandes and Linda A. Friesen illustrate a temporal relation between the discontinuation or initiation of therapy with certain non-antineoplastic agents (lithium, carbamazepine and an H1-antihistamine) and the clinical course of cancer. Only an accumulation of similar case reports and the results of epidemiologic and controlled clinical studies will show whether the temporal relation observed in these cases is also a causal one. In the absence of strong, let alone conclusive, evidence that antidepressants or antihistamines promote the growth of tumours in human beings, a recommendation to stop using these medications would be premature. The news about these case reports and about animal studies on the tumour-promoting potential of some antidepressants and antihistamines is likely to spread through the media. The realistic and responsible option for physicians and clinical investigators is to help patients and prospective participants in clinical trials to interpret this information in a balanced and reasonable fashion.
Gene amplification by reverse transcriptase PCR with heterologous primers has been used to obtain a cDNA clone encoding the structural sequences of ovine interleukin 6 from alveolar macrophages. This cDNA encodes a protein of M(r) = 23,429, which is 53% homologous in amino acid sequence to human IL = 6. The clone hybridizes to an RNA of size 1260 nt in alveolar macrophages, expression of which is potentiated by LPS. The ovine IL-6 structural gene has been cloned into the yeast expression vector pOGS40, and used to produce a recombinant protein. This protein is capable of causing increased immunoglobulin production in pokeweed mitogen stimulated ovine peripheral blood mononuclear cells at concentrations of 10-100 ng/ml, but it only causes very limited replication of B9 cells, a murine IL-6 dependent cell line. This is in contrast to recombinant human IL-6, which is capable of stimulating B9 cell proliferation, but not immunoglobulin production by ovine PBMC.
Reactive changes occurring within lymph nodes draining the subcutaneous site of acute infection with maedi-visna virus (MVV) were studied, and the appearance of infected cells correlated with the immune response. Cells infected with virus were detected in the node by cocultivation from day 4 postinfection (p.i.), with maximum numbers being seen between days 7 and 14, but even then infected cells were rare, with a maximum frequency of 23 50% tissue culture infective doses (TCID50) in 10(6) lymph node cells. At later times, infected cells were still detected, but their numbers fell to 1 to 2 TCID50 per 10(6) cells. Virus-specific CD8+ cytotoxic T-cell precursors (CTLp) were isolated from infected nodes from day 10 p.i. onwards, and T-cell proliferative responses to MVV were first detected on day 7 and consistently detected after day 18. Histological analysis showed a vigorous immune response in the node. There was a marked blast reaction in the T-cell-rich zones, which was greatest at the time when the number of virally infected cells was at its height. At this stage, large numbers of plasma cells were seen in the medullary cords, indicating that extensive T-cell-dependent B-cell activation was occurring in the T-cell-rich zones. Germinal centers were prominent shortly after the onset of the T-zone response and were still present at 40 days p.i. Phenotype studies of isolated lymph node cells failed to detect major changes in the proportion or phenotype of macrophages, CD1+ interdigitating cells, and CD4+ or CD8+ T cells despite the fact that CD8+ lymphoblasts form a major population leaving the node in efferent lymph. This suggests that there is a balanced increase in the number of all cell types in response to the virus within the node and selective migration of CD8+ lymphoblasts containing virus-specific CTLp from the node. Virus-specific immune responses are therefore present within the node when infectious virus isolation is maximal, but cellular immunity may act to control the level of infection from day 18 onwards.
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