Biomedical subjects
J R Hamilton
Publications and source records attributed to J R Hamilton.
A pseudoepidemic of pulmonary fungal infections related to fiberoptic bronchoscopy.
During a three-week period a pseudoepidemic of fungal infections occurred involving patients from two different services. Trichosporon cutaneum and a Penicillium species were isolated from bronchial washings and sputa obtained after fiberoptic bronchoscopy on eight clinically uninfected patients. Investigation revealed contamination of cocaine solutions used for topical anesthesia during bronchoscopy. Contamination is thought to have occurred during preparation of the solutions by pharmacy personnel. Revision of techniques used in formulating and dispensing the solutions resulted in cessation of the pseudoepidemic.
Erb, an allele to Era, and evidence for a third allele, Er.
An antibody against a low-incidence antigen was detected in the serum of a woman whose newborn infant was found to have a positive direct antiglobulin test. The antibody failed to agglutinate 79 examples of red cells having low-incidence antigens and 16 examples of high-incidence antigen-negative red cells. The woman's serum reacted strongly with her husband's red cells in the antiglobulin test and with 5 of 6 Er(a-) cell samples from unrelated donors, suggesting that the antigen has an antithetical relationship to Era. The failure of the serum to react with one Er(a-) cell sample and with cells from the Er(a+) daughter of an Er(a-b+) mother gives evidence for a silent allele, Er. Four Er(b+) bloods were found among 605 random white donors, indicating a gene frequency for Erb of 0.0033.
Enteric protein loss measured by fecal alpha 1-antitrypsin clearance in the assessment of Crohn's disease activity: a study of children and adolescents.
We compared conventional measures of disease activity with 24-h fecal alpha 1-antitrypsin clearance in 59 children and adolescents with Crohn's disease and 30 with ulcerative colitis. Among the Crohn's patients clearance was increased significantly in those with abnormal erythrocyte sedimentation rates (ESR) (greater than 15 mm/h, p less than 0.005) and diminished serum albumin (less than 35 g/L, p less than 0.005), but not in those with an abnormal Crohn's disease activity index (CDAI less than 150). Correlation between alpha 1-antitrypsin clearance and ESR was poor (r = 0.17) as with CDAI (r = 0.09). We conclude that severity of enteric protein loss is not closely related to the degree of abnormality of commonly used measures of disease activity in young patients with Crohn's disease. In contrast, in patients with ulcerative colitis, alpha 1-antitrypsin clearance correlated more consistently with clinical assessment of inflammatory activity (p less than 0.001).
In vivo intestinal uptake of immunoreactive bovine albumin in piglet enteritis.
We examined the uptake of bovine serum albumin (BSA) from the intestine into the circulation of 3-week-old piglets infected with transmissible gastroenteritis virus. Transfer of immunoreactive bovine serum albumin (iBSA) from the intestinal lumen into the circulation was enhanced during both the early invasive phase of this viral enteritis (12-h postinoculation) and the diarrheal phase (84-h postinoculation). In some animals, enhanced uptake persisted into the recovery phase, 324 h after inoculation. Gel filtration studies suggested that iBSA had the molecular size characteristic of native BSA; no immunoreactive fragments of BSA were detected. Based on studies of two animals, the half-life of iBSA approximated that of porcine albumin. Further study is required to determine the immunological consequences of the enhanced uptake of protein occurring during viral infection of the intestine.
Health research in the developing world: a gastroenterological view from Bangladesh.
Ill health is a serious impediment to progress in most poor countries, yet health is not a high priority on foreign aid agendas. Health research, which provides the essential base for sustainable progressive health programs, is barely visible in developing countries. For example, in Bangladesh, one finds unacceptably high morbidity and mortality rates among infants and children, health programs that are struggling and a rudimentary health research establishment; for the huge foreign donor community in that country, health programs and research do not appear to warrant major investments. Diarrheal diseases are at the top of the list of killers in many poor nations including Bangladesh. Recent advances in our understanding of diarrhea suggest that when prevention may not be possible soon, improved active treatment can evolve from an aggressive research effort centered in a developing country and linked to appropriate international partners. Global agencies such as the World Health Organization have demonstrated a declining interest in health research, as reflected in the policies of their Diarrhoeal Disease Control Programme. Major donors to the developing world, the Canadian International Development Agency for example, have had a relatively minor involvement in health and little commitment to health research. University links with the west, private enterprises and specially targeted programs are involved in developing world health research but they have not been able to foster and leave behind sustainable, high quality research programs. The problem should be attacked directly by supporting focused, relevant health research centres in regions of the world where the burden of disease continues to impede progress and where the environment is conducive to high quality research that is well integrated with care delivery programs. An instructive model of this approach is the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Surgical management of infective endocarditis after heart-lung transplantation.
Bacterial endocarditis after heart-lung transplantation has not been described. We report Staphylococcus aureus bacterial endocarditis in a 12-year-old boy after heart-lung transplantation. He was found to have an apparently free vegetation in his left ventricle, which was surgically removed. After a stormy postoperative period, he successfully recovered and remains well after 6 months.