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Biomedical subjects

G Smith

Publications and source records attributed to G Smith.

At least 1,063 records · Page 59Linked to original sources
PubMedDate not supplied

Renal allograft survival in outbred mongrel dogs using rabbit anti-dog thymocyte serum in combination with immunosuppressive drug therapy with or without donor bone marrow.

Therapeutic renal transplantation in dogs is currently being investigated as a treatment for endstage renal disease. This pilot study examines the effect of donor bone marrow (DBM) infusion and antithymocyte serum (ATS) in combination with immunosuppressive drug therapy in prolonging renal allograft survival in dogs. Seven normal outbred mongrel dogs received an unmatched renal allograft. All dogs received rabbit anti-dog thymocyte serum (RADTS), prednisone (Pr), cyclosporine-A (CsA) and azathioprine (Aza). In addition, three dogs (group 1 test) received DBM and four dogs (group 2 control) did not receive DBM. Serum CsA levels were measured throughout the study. Immunosuppressive therapy was gradually reduced with Pr, CsA, and Aza withdrawn at 200, 450, and 680 days, respectively. Allograft rejection was treated with prednisolone sodium succinate. One dog in group 1 and one in group 2 died as a result of infectious canine rhinotracheitis and rejection early in the study. Renal allograft torsion occurred in one group 1 dog. The remaining four dogs survived the 2 years of the study. The dogs in group 2 (three dogs) all rejected the renal allograft after total drug withdrawal, the surviving dog in group 1 did not. This study demonstrates that RADTS, Pr, CsA, and Aza in combination can prolong renal allograft survival in mongrel dogs, whereas DBM may enhance the unresponsive state.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Creative, not smug.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Autistic Disorder↗
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Total quality improvement: an example of an effective team.

Total quality improvement (TQI) advocates that all staff members in an organization develop their own ideas on job improvement about their own specific jobs. This process helps to improve staff performance and to build continually on those improvements. This article will describe how the TQI process was used successfully by quality management staff members at a federal medical center to investigate a problem with linen.

Arizona↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Rehabilitation of muscle function. Part 1.

This article, which develops the concepts introduced in the authors' paper in last week's edition (1), is the first of two which review and summarise recent studies describing techniques to test the hypothesis that uniform frequency stimulation of skeletal muscle deprives the muscle of the type of signals that are necessary for rapid, appropriate and effective adaptation. Next week, clinical trials which have tested this hypothesis will be described, and the implications of the results for nurses involved in rehabilitation work discussed; Part 1 sets out the methodology of extracting the firing patterns of single motor units from a fatiguing muscle.

Electric Stimulation↗
PubMedDate not supplied

An evaluation of international nursing education using interactive desktop video conferencing.

Evolving computer technology has opened the door to unique and previously unavailable educational experiences. The use of one form of distance learning enabled undergraduate nursing students in the United States and England to participate in a short course on women's health issues. The nursing faculty at two universities, one in the United States and the other in England, collaborated on an international nursing education project. The delivery device was interactive desktop video conferencing (DTV). The focus of this article is on the evaluation of the project with recommendations about how best to use DTV in international nursing education.

Education, Distance↗
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Rehabilitation of muscle function. Part 2.

This article describes the utilisation of a physiologically based research technique developed to facilitate the nursing care of patients with skeletal muscle wasting. The technique, which involved electrotherapeutic stimulation to the first dorsal interosseous muscle of a group of arthritic patients, demonstrates that patterned neuromuscular stimulation of skeletal muscle can have enormously beneficial effects in preserving and regenerating skeletal muscle. The reasons for the muscle wasting, and the subsequent vicious spiral of immobility, were reviewed in Part 1 (1), and both articles build on the concepts described in a previous paper published in Nursing Standard (2).

Electric Stimulation Therapy↗
PubMedDate not supplied

An informative case of Graves' disease with implications for schizophrenia.

The aetiology of schizophrenia and the other psychoses is not yet established. The Knight model, based on genetic and other evidence, proposes that schizophrenia is an autoimmune disease, caused by the development of forbidden clones of B lymphocytes that secrete autoantibodies that accidentally stimulate cell surface receptors on certain neurons, affecting the limbic system of the brain. An unusual defect in a Maori man with Graves' disease rendered him unresponsive to the usually effective antithyroid drugs, prompting his being treated with prednisone, a non-specific immunosuppressant agent. This was highly successful, reducing the blood level of the causative thyroid-stimulating autoantibodies with reduction of thyroid hormone levels and thyroid gland size. Unfortunately, high dosage prednisone can be used for only a month, because of steroid toxicity. A research pathway to effective therapy of receptor-mediated autoimmune diseases, which probably include the psychoses, is now apparent. It involves finding the autoantibodies, then cloning of their antigenic targets, as has been done for Graves' disease. This will provide knowledge of the peptide sequences necessary for constructing therapeutic agents for selectively destroying the pathogenic forbidden clones. Meanwhile, usage of short-term therapy with prednisone could be helpful in the management of schizophrenia and should be explored.

Antithyroid Agents↗
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Peptide immunization can elicit malaria protein-specific memory helper but not proliferative T cells.

We have studied the proliferative and helper T cell responses in mice to a malaria sporozoite vaccine candidate currently undergoing human trials. Following immunization of B10 (I-Ab) mice with the purified recombinant baculovirus-expressed Plasmodium falciparum circumsporozoite protein, draining lymph node cells were challenged in vitro with a series of overlapping synthetic peptides which span the construct. Surprisingly, only a single peptide from the protein was immunodominant in that it could reproducibly elicit a significant proliferative response from the immunized lymph node cells. This epitope, (NANP)n, is also the repetitive immunodominant B cell epitope of the protein. However, immunization of mice with synthetic peptides revealed at least 3 cryptic proliferative epitopes--epitopes not revealed by protein immunization--two of which represent conserved regions of the protein. While cryptic peptide-immunization did not elicit protein-specific proliferative T cells, it did reveal protein-specific helper T cells, as shown by an in vivo assay. Identification of "cryptic" epitopes not only for malaria but for other infectious diseases may aid vaccine design, especially in situations where subunit vaccines are sought.

Amino Acid Sequence↗
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CT diagnostic features of Alzheimer disease: importance of the choroidal/hippocampal fissure complex.

Neuropathologic changes in the temporal lobe, including focal atrophy of the subiculum and entorhinal cortex, have been described in association with Alzheimer disease. We studied the usefulness of detecting temporal-lobe structural changes on CT in making the diagnosis of Alzheimer disease. The dementia imaging protocol we use includes thin-section (5 mm) cuts of the temporal lobe oriented 20 degrees negative (caudal) to the plane of the canthomeatal line. Thirty-four patients with suspected Alzheimer disease and 20 normal elderly control subjects, all between 65 and 80 years old, were studied with a standard protocol that also included neurologic and medical examinations and detailed psychometric testing. All the temporal-lobe evaluations of the five variables measured were significantly associated with the presence or absence of Alzheimer disease. Almost all Alzheimer patients showed evidence of mild or greater severity of overall temporal-lobe atrophy. The absence of temporal-lobe atrophy, seen in approximately one half the normal cases, identified normal individuals with a high degree of specificity (95%). The presence of characteristic hippocampal lucency, apparently due to enlargement of the choroid and hippocampal fissures, showed the highest sensitivity and classification accuracy of all the variables tested (82 and 80% respectively; p less than .001), correctly identifying 82% of Alzheimer patients and 80% of Alzheimer patients and control subjects. These results indicate that CT detection of structural changes in the temporal lobe and hippocampus strongly support the diagnosis of Alzheimer disease. A temporal-lobe imaging protocol for CT, and by extension for MR, is suggested for the evaluation of patients with the clinical diagnosis of a dementing disorder.

Aged↗
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Laryngotracheitis in chickens: the length of the preinfectious and infectious periods.

Transmission studies to measure the length of the infectious period and the interval between virus inoculation and infectiousness were conducted using the standard National Veterinary Services Laboratory laryngotracheitis (LT) challenge virus (Log 10(6.7) EID50 per ml). Previously unexposed sentinel chickens were placed in contact with chickens inoculated intratracheally with LT virus. Transmission of virus to the sentinel birds was assessed by studying clinical signs and results of virus isolation and challenge. Chickens began to shed infective quantities of virus 2-4 days postinoculation and continued until day 6.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Laryngotracheitis in chickens: infection studies and the efficacy of a tissue-culture vaccine in chicks less than four weeks old.

Challenge studies using the standard National Veterinary Services Laboratory laryngotracheitis (LT) challenge virus (Log 10(6.7) EID50 per ml) were conducted to assess the presence of maternal protection in chicks of various ages (1, 7, 14, 21, and 28 days). Chicks from vaccinated and unvaccinated breeders were challenged by intratracheal inoculation. Chicks of all these ages irrespective of origin were susceptible to infection. Similarly derived chicks were vaccinated by eyedrop with a commercially available tissue-culture vaccine. Chicks vaccinated at 21 and 28 days were adequately protected from challenge (77-94% protection), whereas less than 60% of chicks vaccinated at 1, 7, or 14 days were protected.

Age Factors↗