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Biomedical subjects

I Robinson

Publications and source records attributed to I Robinson.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
PubMed1992

Longitudinal Gompertzian analysis of ALS mortality in England and Wales, 1963-1989: estimates of susceptibility in the general population.

Mortality statistics in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which is more commonly and generally termed motoneurone disease (MND) in the United Kingdom, have been shown to reflect the incidence of previously diagnosed cases of the disease in a more complete way than in other conditions [1,2]. An analysis of changing patterns of mortality may therefore be a particularly appropriate way of tracing the underlying trends in the disease and is in principle a useful way of investigating the relationship between environmental and genetically controlled factors in the genesis of the condition. The majority of analyses so far have concentrated on the crude rise in reported mortality rates evident in recent decades in a number of countries [2-5], on the uneven geographical distribution [6,7] and on the complex range of plausible causes for these reported rises. Debates have centred on whether the increases represent 'real' or 'artifactual' changes, with no apparent resolution of the issue [8,3]. Recently Riggs [9] proposed a novel way of analysing this issue by using a Gompertzian model and provided evidence of the existence of an inherently susceptible subset of the US population. Riggs indicated that while the rise in ALS mortality is real, it is for the most part the result of an increase in the size of this inherently susceptible sub-population due to greater longevity. In order to examine the wider applicability of a Gompertzian model to ALS the technique has been replicated with the mortality rates for England and Wales for the 27-year period from 1963 to 1989. The technique has been developed and extended to produce an estimate of the size of the inherently susceptible sub-population (both male and female) over the entire period.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1992

Imaging of medullary carcinoma of the thyroid using 111In-labelled anti-CEA monoclonal antibody fragments.

The distribution of 111In-labelled anti-carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) monoclonal antibody fragments [F(Ab')2] was studied in five patients either with known inoperable medullary carcinoma of the thyroid (MCT) or evidence of recurrence/metastases based on elevated calcitonin (hCT) levels. All five cases had elevated serum CEA levels and positive immunohistochemical stains for both hCT and CEA prior to scintigraphy. In two patients with identified inoperable disease both planar and SPECT scans were positive. In the remaining three patients, where the recurrence/metastatic sites were unknown, SPECT images were positive in two. Of these, only one had positive planar images. These results indicate that 111In-labelled anti-CEA F(ab')2 scintigraphy, especially in conjunction with SPECT, is useful for the diagnostic evaluation of patients with MCT. The limiting factor of this technique is the high level of non-specific uptake, particularly in the liver, but improvements in the specificity of newer anti-CEA antibodies and the ability to label these with 99Tcm is addressing this problem.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Reserpine-induced processing of chromogranin A in cultured bovine adrenal chromaffin cells.

The effect of reserpine on the processing of the secretory granule protein chromogranin A (CgA) in isolated bovine adrenal chromaffin cells was investigated using two radioimmunoassays employing site-specific antisera. The two antisera were directed against closely associated regions of the CgA molecule which would be exposed by specific processing: antiserum L331 was raised against the C-terminus of the regulatory peptide pancreastatin, and the second antiserum, L300, was raised against the synthetic peptide [Tyr0]CgA306-313 (YLSKEWEDA), a sequence that lies immediately C-terminal to pancreastatin and adjacent to a dibasic amino acid cleavage site. Chronic reserpine treatment of chromaffin cells produced a time- and dose-dependent increase in processing, as demonstrated by an increase in pancreastatin- and YLSKEWEDA-immunoreactivity (ir). The reserpine-induced rise in pancreastatin-ir was due predominantly to an increase in pancreastatin 1-47, whereas the rise in YLSKEWEDA-ir was due to increases in three polypeptides: a 51-kDa YLSKEWEDA-ir polypeptide, CgA297-313, and CgA248-313. The latter predominated. The action of reserpine on both pancreastatin- and YLSKEWEDA-ir was found to be largely inhibited by the protein synthesis inhibitor cycloheximide. The results show that treatment of isolated chromaffin cells with reserpine induces both the selective proteolytic processing and peptidyl-glycine amidation of CgA and its derived fragments. As reserpine has a similar effect on proenkephalin in chromaffin cells, the results suggest that reserpine induces a general increase in the activity of the processing enzymes, partially by an increase in protein synthesis.

Adrenal Glands↗
PubMed1991

Confidentiality for whom?

Confidentiality has been argued to be a cornerstone both of medical and social research encounters, particularly because of the protection it offers for patients and informants. In practice the idea of confidentiality is fractured. Professional interests in the organisation of medical work, and concerns for the collective interest amongst social researchers may lead to individual confidentiality being undermined. In addition discrepancies in the ethical positions and practices of social researchers and those in biomedicine may produce further problems for the maintenance of confidentiality.

Behavioral Research↗
PubMed1990

Personal narratives, social careers and medical courses: analysing life trajectories in autobiographies of people with multiple sclerosis.

Personal accounts of illness have always proved difficult to analyse. Using the distinction between personal narratives of illness, social careers of sickness and physical courses of disease this paper argues that such narratives provide an important and complementary means of understanding changes in health status. In developing a broad typology of such narratives it is argued that they can be considered as thermatically organised life stories. Personal accounts of the lives of people with multiple sclerosis are subject to narrative analysis, and the value of such perspectives is stressed in giving access to the personal world of illness.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1989

The characteristics of a national register of people with multiple sclerosis (MS): a comparison between the ARMS (Action for Research into Multiple Sclerosis) register and 10 British MS populations.

Problems with case ascertainment in epidemiological research on multiple sclerosis (MS) make it necessary to use indirect sources. However, there is a lack of information about the characteristics of cases drawn from different sources and thus little basis on which sampling frames for large scale surveys may be constructed. The characteristics of a population drawn from the membership of Action for Research into Multiple Sclerosis (ARMS) were compared with those of 10 other British MS populations reported between 1980 and 1987. Demographic variables examined were geographical location, nationality, ethnicity, sex ratio and age. Diagnostic status, age at diagnosis and duration since diagnosis were considered together with data on the comparative populations based on date of onset. On all the variables investigated the ARMS population fell close to or within the range shown by the comparative populations. The relative youth of the ARMS population and its bias towards a high proportion of females were differences in keeping with existing knowledge about the membership of mutual support organisations. A population drawn from such an organisation may usefully complement other MS research populations provided that the likely biases in each are understood.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Effects of vasopressin on the human non-pregnant uterus: studies with analogues of different vasopressor potencies.

The uterotonic effects of arginine8-vasopressin (AVP) have been studied on uterine strips from non-pregnant women. Concentration-dependent contractions could be recorded over a 10 min period in the presence of AVP (5.5.10(-10)-3.10(-7) M); the most reproducible recordings were obtained with tissue from the inner part of the myometrium. Analogues of AVP and oxytocin (OT), modified at positions 1 (2-hydroxy-3-mercaptopropionic acid, deamino-3-mercaptopropionic acid), 2 (Phe), 4 (Arg, Val), 7 (Sar) or 8 (Orn) were synthesized and tested for uterotonic activity on human and rat uterine strips, and for vasopressor and antidiuretic activity in the rat in vivo. There was a positive correlation between the activity of these analogues on non-pregnant human myometrial tissue with that in the rat vasopressor assay (r = 0.86, P less than 0.01) but none with their activity in the antidiuretic assay. For example, [Mpa1,D-Arg8]vasopressin had more than twice the antidiuretic activity of AVP but less than 0.2% of its pressor or human uterotonic potency (Mpa = 3-mercaptopropionic acid). Correspondingly, the specific pressor analogue [Hmp1,Phe2,Orn8]OT was as potent as AVP on the human uterus, but had less than 3% of its antidiuretic activity (Hmp = 2-hydroxy-3-mercaptopropionic acid). There was no correlation between the uterotonic activities of AVP or its analogues when non-pregnant human and rat tissues were compared, indicating that rat uterine tissue is a poor guide when testing analogues intended for clinical use in non-pregnant women.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Hodgkin's disease with a granulomatous pulmonary presentation mimicking sarcoidosis.

A prominent sarcoid like pulmonary granulomatous reaction to Hodgkin's disease was diagnosed six months before extrapulmonary Hodgkin's disease was confirmed histologically. It recurred with exacerbations of the lymphoma. The reaction is similar to that often seen at pathological staging of intra-abdominal organs not affected by Hodgkin's disease.

Diagnosis, Differential↗
PubMed1988

Managing symptoms in chronic disease: some dimensions of patients' experience.

This paper is a review of strategies that patients use to manage their symptoms in chronic conditions, with particular reference to multiple sclerosis. It emphasizes the complex and socially conditioned process through which symptoms come to be recognized and managed by patients. This process is compared and contrasted with that of medical recognition of symptoms. A range of patient-based strategies and their implications is then discussed.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1987

Analysing the structure of 23 clinical trials in multiple sclerosis.

At present many trials appear to be using subjective data, but using these data in an unsystematic and inappropriate way. In this context it is not surprising that subjective measures have a generally low status amongst investigators in clinical trials in MS. A more careful approach to such subjective measures would enable trials to take into account a significantly wider range of features. Controlled trials can then act as an important psychosocial as well as biomedical laboratory in the understanding of MS.

Clinical Trials as Topic↗
PubMed1985

Problems in evaluating the consequences of disabling illness: the case of multiple sclerosis.

There is a need for a method, useful both to the clinician and to the research worker which can assess both the 'quantity' and the 'quality' of daily life. In this paper two 'diary' methods are described for obtaining accounts of daily activities, social contacts and patterns of interaction from people diagnosed as having multiple sclerosis. The information obtained is compared with that derived from a major decennial national survey of the population aged over 4 years and from a selected group of matched non-patient controls. The paper is divided into two parts, each concentrating on one of the techniques. The first is a postal 24-hour written account; the second a detailed tape-recorded interview known as the 'Standard Day Interview'. Difficulties and advantages in using these approaches to assess both the quantitative and the qualitative changes during disabling illness are discussed and proposals for developing the methods are presented. Indications of substantive variation in the use of time by samples drawn from the 'healthy' and from populations with multiple sclerosis are reported.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1979

Enterovirus 71 isolated from cases of epidemic poliomyelitis-like disease in Bulgaria.

Virological and serological studies of an epidemic disease in Bulgaria, 1975, were carried out. Epidemiologically, clinically and pathomorphologically, the disease simulated almost all known forms of poliomyelitis, acute stem encephalitis, encephalomyocarditis and aseptic meningitis. The studies completely rules out the participation of polioviruses and provided comprehensive evidence for the etiological role of a peculiar enterovirus subsequently identified as enterovirus (EV) type 71 known in the literature since 1974. Altogether, in 1975 and 1976 from 65 cases of poliomyelitis-like disease (PLD) 92 strains of EV71 were isolated, including 37 strains from the brain and medulla, 1 from the cerebrospinal fluid, 10 from mesenterial lymph nodes and tonsils and 44 from faeces. In addition, in 282 convalescent cases of the disease, diagnostic seroconversion or high titers of antibody to this virus were demonstrated. The most successful virus isolation was achieved by inoculation of green monkey kidney cell cultures and newborn white mice. Bulgarian strains of enterovirus 71 regularly caused paralysis in monkeys and morphological poliomyelitis-like lesions in their CNS, and paralysis and myositis with Zenker necrosis in newborn white mice, cotton rats, Syrian hamsters, and 3-week-old cotton rats. The diseased rodents had much more virus in their mucles than in brains.

Adult↗
PubMed1977

Severe illness with anxiety following a reputed magical act on an Australian aboriginal.

A case of extreme anxiety is described in an Aboriginal man who believed he had been subjected to magical influences. It is hypothesized that extreme anxiety accompanied by a refusal to eat or drink (the latter feature being part of the Aboriginal belief system under these conditions) is part, or all, of the mechanism of death from magical influences.

Adult↗