Search PubMed⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

G Cassady

Publications and source records attributed to G Cassady.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

Impact of intensive newborn care on neonatal mortality in a community hospital.

Development of a Perinatal Center delivering Level 3 intensive care in a community hospital is described. The inborn neonatal mortality at the hospital in which the Center is located, as well as that of the 13 surrounding counties, has diminished more rapidly than the state neonatal mortality. This has coincided with an almost constant delivery rate, increased proportion of staff patients, relatively constant rate of low birth weight, and declining total perinatal mortality. Our experience suggests that appropriately trained and motivated people, not equipment or geographic location, represent the key factor in the development of such a center.

Child Health Services↗

Congenital tuberculosis.

Congenital tuberculosis is a rare and often fatal disease. This report concerned a premature infant in whom the disease was found after postpartum diagnosis in the mother. Use of endotracheal tube aspirates to diagnose tuberculosis in the infant is a unique feature of this case.

Adult↗

Reye's syndrome in a neonate.

This case substantiates the fact that Reye's syndrome can occur in newborns. The clinical features appear to be slightly different in the neonate, in that respiratory distress was the presenting sign in this case and in the one other reported case in a newborn, with no mild preceding illness or vomiting. Thus, Reye's syndrome must be considered when a newborn presents with respiratory distress and evidence of central nervous system and hepatic involvement.

Female↗

Nasal continuous positive airway pressure. Improvement in arterial oxygenation in hyaline membrane disease.

Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) was employed using nasal prongs in 30 neonates with hyaline membrane disease (HMD). There was a significant improvement in mean PaO2 (from 47 to 80 mmHg;p less than 0.001) with no significant change in PaCO2 or pH within a mean 36 min of therapy. Use of the technique allowed reduction of FiO2 to less than 0.60 in less than 20 h in 18 infants. Infants treated within 24 h of birth had significantly greater improvements in PaO2. Complications were infrequent and only 3 of 30 babies developed a pneumothorax while on nasal CPAP. Only 1 of the 23 survivors required mechanical ventilation in addition to nasal CPAP.

Carbon Dioxide↗

Use of Limulus lysate for detecting gram-negative neonatal meningitis.

The Limulus lysate test was evaluated as a method for rapid detection of neonatal gram-negative bacterial meningitis. A total of 208 CSF samples were collected from 145 newborn infants suspected of having meningitis. Initial samples from all six babies with culture-proven gram-negative bacterial meningitis had positive Limulus tests within 30 minutes of incubation. Samples from 14 infants with gram-negative organisms isolated only in blood and/or urine as well as from four neonates with gram-positive organisms in CSF cultures and from 13 with gram-positive organisms in blood cultures all yielded negative Limulus tests. Thus, of 37 newborn infants with bacteria demonstrated in systemic cultures, only those six with gram-negative organisms in CSF had positive CSF Limulus tests. The CSF Limulus test was shown to be a rapid, reliable, and specific test for the detection on neonatal gram-negative bacterial meningitis.

Arachnida↗

Feeding the low-birthweight infant: orally or parenterally?: II. Corrected bromide space in parenterally supplemented infants.

Previously published data suggested that the faster rate of weight gain observed in parenterally supplemented neonates compared to their orally fed peers might be attributable to water retention rather than to more rapid tissue accretion. The present study was designed to test that hypothesis by observing changes in extracellular water, estimated as corrected bromide space (CBS). Ten neonates with a mean birthweight of 1,250 gm (range, 800 to 1,980 gm) and a mean gestational age of 31 weeks (range, 24 to 38 weeks) were randomly assigned to a 67 cal/dl formula feeding or an oral 100 cal/dl formula feeding supplemented parenterally with dextrose and amino acids. CBS was estimated within 19 hours of birth and between the 7th and 28th postnatal days. Mean total daily water and protein intakes during the intervening period were similar for orally fed and supplemented neonates, but the latter took significantly less orally and received more parenterally. CBS increased in all but one of the supplemented neonates whereas two of four orally fed babies had decreasing values and one had stable values. Shorter times before regaining birthweight, faster rates of weight gain, and lower arterial pH were associated with larger CBS as well as with parenteral supplementation. These data suggest that parenteral supplementation may result in water retention and/or shifts from the intracellular to the extracellular space. Previously reported earlier and greater mean daily weight gains in supplemented babies may be related to water accumulation rather than tissue accretion, but definitive conclusions must await further studies, including concomitant estimates of total and extracellular body water.

Body Water↗

Endotracheal intubation and its relationship to bacterial colonization and systemic infection of newborn infants.

The role of antibiotics in preventing respiratory tract bacterial colonization and systemic infection after orotracheal intubation was prospectively studied in 54 newborn infants. Respiratory tract colonization was assessed from nasopharyngeal and tracheal aspirate cultures obtained at intubation and daily thereafter, while systemic infection was monitored by blood, cerebrospinal fluid, and suprapubic urine cultures performed initially and every three days thereafter while intubated. Colonization and systemic cultures were also obtained at extubation or death. The study group, provided with antibiotics at intubation, and the control group were similar in birthweight and gestational age, as well as race, sex, hospital or origin, and indication for intubation. Colonization at intubation was five times more common in infants intubated 12 or more hours after birth than in infants intubated earlier. Subsequent colonization was twice as frequent in infants intubated longer than 72 hours as well as in those requiring two or more reintubations. Systemic infection occurred only in those infants who were initially or subsequently colonized and was three times more frequent in the control group than in the study group.

Anti-Bacterial Agents↗

Amniotic fluid lecithin/sphingomyelin ratio in complicated pregnancies.

Amniotic fluid (AF) lecithin/sphingomyelin (L/S) rations were obtained in 223 pregnancies. Gestations complicated by maternal diabetes (71), vascular disease (50), and fetal growth retardation (47) were included. Elevated L/S ratios at 34 to 36 weeks' gestation were observed to accompany maternal vascular disease; higher rat;os were also related to fetal sex (female) and race (black). Declining L/S rations were observed in 14 of 35 diabetic patients studied serially (40 per cent) and were accompanied by increased perinatal morbidity and deaths. These data suggest an urgent need for further studies concerning the clinical usefulness of a serial decline in the L/S ration as a predictor of fetal compromise.

Amniocentesis↗

Amniotic fluid creatinine in pregnancies complicated by diabetes.

Amniotic fluid (AF) creatinine concentrations, determined in 353 samples from 167 pregnancies complicated by maternal diabetes, are similar to those found at comparable gestation in uncomplicated pregnancy. Added maternal vascular disease significantly raises AF creatinine to such a degree that overestimation of fetal (renal) maturity is a clinical hazard if based solely on this parameter. Relative concentrations of creatinine in AF and maternal plasma (AF/MP ratio) are related to gestational age. Failure of AF creatinine to rise consistently on successive serial samples accompanies an increased risk of perinatal death in the pregnancy complicated by diabetes, four of five deaths in the present series following declines in this measurement.

Adult↗