[Effects of psychotherapy in schizophrenia. What conclusions can be drawn from the Abo Project?].
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to H Jonsson.
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Some strains of Staphylococcus aureus bind collagen with a high degree of specificity and affinity. This interaction can represent a mechanism of substrate adhesion and may be an important step in the pathogenesis of osteomyelitis and infectious arthritis. We now report on the cloning, sequencing, and expression of a gene name cna, encoding a S. aureus collagen adhesin. The cna gene was isolated from a lambda GT11 S. aureus genomic library and encodes an 1185 amino acid polypeptide. The deduced amino acid sequence reveals several structural characteristics similar to previously described Gram-positive bacterial cell surface proteins. Antibodies raised against the native collagen adhesin from S. aureus recognize the recombinant collagen adhesin. Collagen binding activity can be detected in a lysate obtained from Escherichia coli cells, which harbor the cloned cna gene on an expression plasmid. Collagen-binding proteins can be detected in the lysate when analyzed by a Western blot type assay in which the membrane-transferred proteins are probed with radioactively labeled collagen. Finally, the bacterial lysate containing the recombinant adhesin can effectively inhibit the binding of soluble collagen to cells of S. aureus.
32 patients with old anterior cruciate ligament injuries were operated on with patellar tendon-prepatellar tissue-quadriceps tendon graft over the top without and with augmentation (Kennedy-LAD). The anteroposterior (AP) laxity was assessed preoperatively, and at 6, 12, and 24 months after the operation with roentgen stereophotogrammetry. 6 months postoperatively the instability had decreased 5.4 mm in the nonaugmented and 1.9 mm in the augmented group, but not to normal values. During the following 18 months the AP laxity increased and returned to the preoperative level. At 2 years, 28 of the 32 patients were considered good or excellent, according to the Lysholm score. There was a lack of correlation between AP laxity and functional tests.
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A cohort of schizophrenic patients consecutively admitted to a mental hospital for the first time in 1925 was investigated in search of symptoms and traits with prognostic meaning. Since Leonhard's diagnostic system was applied, cases with mixed symptoms and a favourable outcome were excluded as being neither schizophrenic nor manic-depressive. Owing to the admission policy then prevailing, cases with clinically less striking and socially less deleterious features were underrepresented. The sample (n = 70), so demarcated, was still considered fairly appropriate for the purpose of a differential study of outcome in nuclear schizophrenia with a life-long follow-up. The best outcome group consisted of 33% of the sample; 24% formed an intermediate group, and 43% profoundly deteriorated with continuous psychotic symptoms and a total loss of social function. Marriage before index admission was the only characteristic related to a favourable outcome. Nuclear schizophrenic symptoms, thought disturbance, blunted affect and all catatonic symptoms listed in DSM-III were related to an unfavourable outcome. When prognostic subgroups were compared pairwise, no favourable trait was detectable, and there were no decisive differences between the group with the best outcome and the intermediate group. When these 2 groups were compared with the group with worst outcome, however, significant differences arose with respect to unfavourable characteristics. Predictions using a discriminant analytic procedure yielded the same results. The hypothesis that affective and atypical signs would also have prognostic meaning in nuclear schizophrenia was disproved.
In search of features of prognostic importance, a cohort of patients admitted to a mental hospital in 1925 was investigated by means of multivariate clustering techniques. Using K-means cluster analysis or Q-factor analysis, a group containing cases with unfavourable prognosis was isolated. Other groups derived were prognostically heterogeneous. One group of patients, in early phases similar to good prognosis schizoaffective psychoses, could be distinguished and characterized by non-symptom items. There was initial periodicity and onset was acute. They were, on average, younger than the other subjects and there was no personality deviation or emotional disturbance before onset of disease. A family history of mental illness was rare. Two of the factors were positively and negatively characterized by items covering familial history of mental illness, thus seemingly confirming the familial vs sporadic distinction in the subclassification of schizophrenia. Though the clinical pictures were distinctively different at the time when the ratings underlying the analysis were made, approximately the same proportion of cases in the two groups had independently been diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenia--also taking the course of illness into account. It could furthermore be shown that the population at risk--siblings and children of subjects--as well as the observed number of years at risk in these groups were significantly smaller in the sporadic group than in the familial group. This was a combined effect of a lower fertility in subjects and parents in the sporadic group and a higher rate of drop out due to mortality and other reasons among siblings of these subjects. The same tendency was indicated when subjects with and without family history irrespective of factor belongingness were compared. It cannot be concluded that the familial vs sporadic distinction is without relevance in the research on schizophrenia, but its essence may easily be obscured, if the population at risk is not taken into account.
In a patient with paraparesis resulting from a pathologic fracture of Th9, which was due to a breast cancer metastasis, indirect anterior decompression via posterior reduction was performed. The rationale for the operation technique was the similarity between a pathologic fracture of the thoracolumbar spine and a traumatic burst fracture. The method, which uses a transpedicular reduction and fixation device, is substantially less invasive than a formal anterior decompression.
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The impact of cancer on a population may be measured in several ways. Incidence, relative survival and mortality are frequently utilized for this purpose. Incidence and relative survival are, however, often influenced by changes in the diagnostics of incident cancer, particularly by an altered rate of detection of non-fatal cancer. Mortality, as traditionally studied, is often influenced by changes of death causes diagnostics or of coding routines. In an attempt to overcome some of these difficulties, the concept of excess mortality was suggested, which is independent of death cause diagnoses or coding routines, as well as of the rate of detection of non-fatal cancer. In order to elucidate time trends in the overall effects of cancer we analysed incidence, survival and mortality from all cancer in the northern region of Sweden 1960-1986. An increasing age-adjusted cancer incidence was paralleled by an improvement in relative survival, whereas age-adjusted cancer mortality was mainly unchanged, at least when studied as excess mortality. We interpreted these findings as due mainly to an increased detection of non-fatal cancer, and to an unchanged occurrence rate of fatal cancer.
Records of all 154 psychotic patients first admitted to a psychiatric hospital in 1925 were rated according to a checklist of 33 dichotomous items expected to characterize cycloid and schizoaffective psychosis; 64 cases satisfied 5 or more items. Among them, 34 were globally judged as cycloid and showed a favourable outcome when followed up. The remaining 30 cases were used as a contrast sample, consisting of schizoaffective psychotics with an unfavourable outcome and schizophrenics and affective patients who shared some symptoms with the experiment group. Six symptoms significantly more frequent in the cycloid group were all characteristic for confusional and anxiety or happiness psychoses in the sense of Leonhard. Happiness-ecstacy and global altruism were exclusively recorded in cycloid psychosis. A discriminant analysis yielded a significant proportion of correct predictions. The result was thought to be relevant for differential therapeutic strategies.
Prediction of 14- to 17-year outcome from symptoms present at admission and psychological and personality data was attempted among the 92 survivors of a group of 110 first-admitted schizophrenic patients. Three different outcome criteria were used and the correlations between these varied from low to high. Using a discriminant analytical approach where all 107 predictor variables were used to predict a combination of outcome criteria, 23% of outcome variance could be explained, which should be compared with 49% in a previous 5- to 9-year outcome study on the same material. At least one outcome variable--economic self-support--could not at all be predicted. "Atypical" symptoms were associated with favourable outcome and longitudinal variables indicative of "high-risk personality", or duration and severity of illness, were related to bad prognosis. Overt psychotic symptoms had no significant correlation with outcome.
A total of 154 patients admitted for the first time to hospital for a psychotic or affective disorder in 1925 were rediagnosed in accordance with DSM-III and Leonhard's diagnostic system. Symptoms were rated in accordance with a rating protocol containing 33 items based on Leonhard's descriptions of cycloid psychoses. The patients were followed up through parish registers and hospital records. Of 42 cases considered to be cycloid psychosis at index admission, 34 were prognostically verified. The symptom ratings of the 154 patients were analysed by K-means cluster analysis to test whether the patients with cycloid psychoses would separate from the rest of the material. With a 2-cluster solution, 30 of 34 cases (88%) were contained in the same cluster. The sensitivity of the ratings was therefore judged to be acceptable. Specificity was low, however, since 19 cases in the cluster were differently diagnosed. A subcohort of 64 patients, satisfying at least 5 items of the rating protocol, was then analysed by Q-factor analysis to test whether nuclear cases of cycloid psychosis differ from symptomatically related syndromes. No such differences could be statistically verified; no symptom profile specifically indicating cycloid psychosis could be found. Prominent confusion symptoms appear, however, to be prognostically favourable, whereas motility symptoms without confusion seem to indicate an unfavourable course.
113 patients with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), representing 82% of the total cohort of AML patients within the geographical area of northern Sweden, were recorded. The total complete remission (CR) rate was 47.8%, and median survival was 4 months. The probability of long-term survival for all patients without exclusions was only 5%. Thus, the results from this study differ strongly from data on patient outcome in most therapy studies in AML, where the influence of patient selection on the results is larger. The median age in our patients was 63 years, which is also higher than in most other studies. Elderly patients had a low CR rate (24% in patients greater than or equal to 70 yr), but remission duration was similar in the different age groups. Patients treated according to "high-dose" protocols had a CR rate of 64%, while only 14% of less aggressively treated patients achieved remission. A better response rate after more aggressive chemotherapy was evident also in elderly patients. CR rate was 81% in patients below 60 yr of age who had no antecedent blood disorder and who had had symptoms for less than 3 months. Other variables with prognostic implications were: cytogenetic subgroup, antecedent hematological disease, and level of serum ferritin. High serum ferritin was associated with short CR duration. Ferritin is produced by the leukemic cells and could be regarded as a marker for leukemic activity.
We studied the activation and C1 inactivator-dependent dissociation of the first component of complement, the C1q(C1r-C1s)2 complex, in relation to recruitment of the classical activation pathway in the circulation of 24 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). The patients were divided into three groups on a clinical basis, and were investigated during flares of disease activity. Group I had mild symptoms, group II major extrarenal manifestations, and group III manifest renal disease. High serum concentrations of trimer complexes containing C1 inactivator, activated C1r and zymogen C1s(C1 IA-C1r-C1s) were found in the majority of the patients. Some patients with high C1 IA-C1r-C1s concentrations showed no evidence of classical pathway activation, indicating that C1 activation was controlled by the action of C1 IA at the C1r level. By contrast, formation in serum of tetramer complexes in which C1 IA was firmly bound to both C1r and C1s (C1 IA-C1r-C1s-C1 IA) was associated with C2 and C3 cleavage in EDTA plasma, and with manifest hypocomplementemia. Low C1 IA-C1r-C1s-C1 IA values were observed in conjunction with substantial C2 cleavage in a few patients. Thus, C1 IA-C1r-C1s-C1 IA may not always be a sensitive indicator of classical pathway activation. Efficient recruitment of the classical pathway was related to disease severity, with some overlap between the clinical groups. In conclusion, C1 dissociation with formation of C1 IA-containing complexes was consistently found in patients with active SLE. The results suggested that C1 IA-dependent control of C1 activation was of biological significance in the disease.
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We studied the age-specific incidence of SLE in a defined population in southern Sweden during 1981-86. Female incidence was 5.4/100,000/year and male incidence 1/100,000/year. In comparison with previous studies, incident cases were characterized by a high age at diagnosis with the highest incidence in age groups 55-64 and 65-74, approximately 7.5/100,000/year. The incidence was low in children under 15 years of age, 0.4/100,000/year, and unexpectedly so in the 15-24 decade, 1.2/100,000/year. Patient retrieval was based on four separate sources: a computerized diagnosis register; referrals from both public health care physicians and private practitioners; and records of ANA positive individuals from the single laboratory serving the area. All incident patients were present in at least two of these sources and 11 patients were present in three. We interpret the high amount of overlap between retrieval sources, without patients detected in only one source, as evidence for a high degree of completeness in our retrieval of SLE patients.
Anti-neutrophil cytoplasm antibody (ANCA) has been shown to be no marker of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) including lupus nephritis or of progressive systemic sclerosis (PSS). Antibodies against myeloperoxidase (anti-MPO) and elastase, two granulocyte lysosomal enzymes, were found in patients with SLE but not in those with PSS, except for one patient who had anti-MPO. Anti-MPO was present in 21% of patients with SLE, and at low concentrations in about 80% of these cases. Anti-elastase was found in four patients with SLE. In another group of six patients with a SLE-like syndrome induced by anti-hypertensive treatment with the anti-hypertensive hydralazine, anti-MPO antibodies occurred in all six, and anti-elastase antibodies in five. Monitored during a 2-year follow-up period, anti-MPO antibodies were found to persist, whereas anti-elastase antibodies were rapidly eliminated, after withdrawal of the drug.