Nifedipine increases cerebral blood flow in sickle cell disease: a case study.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to J Thompson.
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Metered-dose inhalers (MDIs) have been associated with a high rate of misuse. Medical personnel also have a poor understanding of MDI technique. Hospitalized patients had their MDI technique observed before and after a series of inservices were provided to hospital personnel on correct MDI use. The rate of misuse did not change with 55 of 72 (76 percent) patients making errors in the first group before, and 45 of 55 (82 percent) patients making errors in the second group after staff education (p = 0.46). The average number of errors per patient was 2.39 in group 1 and 2.45 in group 2 (p = 0.93). Alternatives to deal with this high rate of MDI misuse are discussed.
We studied the relationship of the administration and dosage of steroids to the development of avascular necrosis of bone in 168 patients who had had a heart transplantation (156 patients) or a heart and lung transplantation (twelve patients). One hundred and forty-one of the patients were male and twenty-seven were female. The average age was forty-five years (range, seven to sixty-six years). The average duration of follow-up was forty months (range, twelve to eighty months). Avascular necrosis developed in five patients (3 per cent). The femoral head was involved in three patients (bilaterally in two and unilaterally in one), the medial femoral condyle was involved bilaterally in one, and several sites were involved in the fifth patient. The avascular necrosis was diagnosed an average of five months (range, two to eleven months) after the transplantation. In order to evaluate the influence of the dosage of the steroids on the development of avascular necrosis of bone, the doses of prednisone and Solu-Medrol (methylprednisolone) at one week, one month, six months, and one year after the transplantation were calculated for each patient. There was no association between the cumulative dose of prednisone and the development of avascular necrosis. There was, however, a strong statistical association (p = 0.005), as determined with pooled two-tailed variance analysis, between the cumulative dose of Solu-Medrol administered in the first month after the transplantation and the development of avascular necrosis.
Lactating dairy goats were exposed to aflatoxin (100 and 200 ppb) and hydrated sodium calcium aluminosilicate at 1, 2, and 4% in two separate experiments. Naturally occurring low levels of aflatoxin M1 (.009 ppb) were found in the milk of the control diet, whereas there were no detectable levels of aflatoxin M1 in the milk of diets containing hydrated sodium calcium aluminosilicate in both experiments. In Exp. 1, no treatment-related differences in clinical behavior or significant difference in the feed intake, milk production, or milk component analyses were observed with 200 ppb of aflatoxin and 4% hydrated sodium calcium aluminosilicate. However, 4% hydrated sodium calcium aluminosilicate was responsible for an 86.9% reduction of aflatoxin M1 residue in the milk of diary goats. In Exp. 2, the combination of 1% hydrated sodium calcium aluminosilicate and aflatoxin at 100 ppb resulted in an overall reduction of aflatoxin M1 residue by 51.9%, which represented a mean change of aflatoxin M1 from .553 to .266 ppb of aflatoxin M1 in the milk. The diet that contained 2% hydrated sodium calcium aluminosilicate and 100 ppb of aflatoxin further reduced aflatoxin residue by a mean change from .553 to .098 of ppb aflatoxin M1, which represents an 82.2% reduction of aflatoxin M1 residue in the milk. Analysis of the data by time indicated that there were no statistical differences between days of sampling. Information regarding the ability of hydrated sodium calcium aluminosilicate to prevent or reduce the level of aflatoxin M1 residues in milk is critically needed.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
The revolutionary upheaval in this nation's health care system may cause many psychiatric nurses in traditional settings to be concerned about their future role. According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services (1990), there were 66,142 psychiatric registered nurses employed in inpatient hospital settings as of 1988. The advent of managed care, decrease in entitlements, and overburdening of the health care system has again led to less accessibility to inpatient psychiatric hospitalization, and briefer stays once hospitalized. As treatment once again moves into the community, nurses may wonder what types of new programs will follow, and if they will employ psychiatric nurses. One type of community based program uses the principles of psychosocial rehabilitation. The Village Integrated Services Agency is such an organization, allowing nurses to fully use their nursing skills, but without the focus on illness and the constraints on autonomy typically experienced in hospital settings.
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HHV-6 infection has been associated with several malignancies including non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and Hodgkin's disease by the presence of high antibody titer and/or the presence of HHV-6 DNA. To understand their oncogenic potential, SalI restriction fragments from HHV-6 strain U1102 were transfected into NIH3T3 cells to assess transforming ability. A 3.9-kbp SalI-L DNA fragment spanning the junction of the direct repeat left (DRL) and unique long segment (UL) regions of HHV-6 induced foci of morphologically altered cells. The SalI-L transformed NIH3T3 focal lines induced tumors in nude mice within 2 weeks. The retention of HHV-6 specific DNA observed in SalI-L transformed cells and their tumor-derived lines suggest a possible maintenance function. Since both HHV-6 infection as well as transforming fragments from other DNA viruses have been shown to transactivate the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) long terminal repeat (LTR), SalI-L was examined for transactivation activity. SalI-L up-regulated HIV-1 LTR CAT 10-15 fold in both monkey CV-1 and human T Jurkat cells. The further study of the SalI-L transforming fragment exhibiting transactivation of HIV-1 LTR will elucidate whether these two activities are encoded by a single gene and will aid in the understanding of the interaction between HHV-6 and HIV-1 as it relates to progression of AIDS and/or AIDS-related malignancies.
We assessed all patients (n = 120) who underwent left ventricular aneurysmectomy as part of a cardiac surgical procedure at the Groby Road Hospital subregional cardiothoracic centre (1980-1990). Of these, 71% had had only one prior myocardial infarction and 84% had symptoms generally associated with aneurysms (congestive cardiac failure, ventricular arrythmias or systemic embolism). The indication for surgery was a combination of angina and aneurysm-related symptoms in 43%, one or more aneurysm-related symptoms in 35%, and angina alone in 22%. The majority of patients (57%) underwent aneurysmectomy and coronary artery bypass grafting, although 35% underwent aneurysmectomy alone. Most (61%) aneurysms were > 6 cm in size, and 75% were located at the apex of the left ventricle. Forty per cent had a mural thrombus, and there was no relationship between prior warfarin use and occurrence of mural thrombus. Overall perioperative mortality was 17% (20 patients), although mortality halved between the first and second halves of the study period. The main reason for perioperative was pump failure. Seventeen patients died late during follow-up (mean 52.5 months), the main cause being further myocardial infarction. Nevertheless, 65% were still alive at 5 years, and 81% and 66% of survivors were still better than pre-operatively at 5 and 8 years, respectively. Post-operative improvement was equally as good in patients who underwent aneurysmectomy alone, or those operated on for aneurysm-related symptoms, as in the whole group. In logistic regression analysis, the only predictor of adverse long-term outcome was the number of previous myocardial infarctions.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Several case reports of erythromycin-induced torsades de pointes (TDP) arrhythmia have been reported in the literature. However, this potentially lethal side-effect of a frequently prescribed drug is not generally known. We report a patient who developed TDP followed by ventricular fibrillation during rapid infusion of erythromycin lactobionate. Although the patient used diuretics, probably predisposing her to arrhythmias due to hypokalaemia, several ECG abnormalities predisposing to TDP, all related to erythromycin infusion, occurred during observation in the ICU, establishing the precipitating role of erythromycin. The diagnosis was made only after QT prolongation, TDP and ventricular fibrillation were observed during rapid intravenous infusion of erythromycin lactobionate, one of the reasons no doubt being the assumed lack of serious side-effects of this frequently prescribed drug.
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Immunoglobulin E (IgE) is central to the induction of allergic diseases through its binding to the high-affinity receptor (Fc epsilon R1) on mast cells and basophils. Crosslinking by allergens of the bound IgE leads to the release of various inflammatory mediators. IgE production by B cells requires a physical interaction with T cells, involving a number of surface adhesion molecules, as well as the soluble factors interleukin-4 (IL-4) and IL-13 (ref. 5) produced by T cells, basophils and mast cells. Here we report that, in the presence of IL-4, mast and basophilic cell lines can provide the cell contact signals that are required for IgE synthesis. The human cell lines HMC-1 (mast) and KU812 (basophilic) both express the ligand for CD40 (CD40L) which is shown to be responsible for the IgE production. Moreover, freshly isolated purified human lung mast cells and blood basophils are also shown to express CD40L and to induce IgE production. This evidence suggests that mast cells and basophils may therefore play a key role in allergy not only by producing inflammatory mediators, but also by directly regulating IgE production independently of T cells.
Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) is a tumor marker that belongs to a family of closely related molecules with variable expression patterns. We have developed sets of oligonucleotide primers for the specific amplification of transcripts from individual CEA-family members using the reverse transcriptase/polymerase chain reaction (RT/PCR). Specific primer sets were designed for CEA, non-specific cross-reacting antigen (NCA), biliary glycoprotein (BGP), carcinoembryonic antigen gene-family members 1, 6 and 7 (CGM1, CGM6 and CGM7), and one set for all pregnancy-specific glycoprotein (PSG) transcripts. Primers were first tested for their specificity against individual cDNA clones and product-hybridization with internal, transcript-specific oligonucleotides. Total RNA from 12 brain and 63 gynecological tumors were then tested for expression of CEA-related transcripts. None were found in tumors located in the brain, including various mesenchymal and neuro-epithelial tumors. CEA and NCA transcripts were, however, present in an adenocarcinoma located in the nasal sinuses. In ovarian mucinous adenocarcinomas, we always found co-expression of CEA and NCA transcripts, and occasionally BGP mRNA. CEA-related transcripts were also found in some serous, endometrioid and clear-cell ovarian carcinomas. CEA, NCA and BGP transcripts were present in endometrial carcinomas of the uterus and cervical carcinomas, whereas uterine leiomyomas were completely negative. No transcripts were found from CGM1, CGM6, CGM7 or from PSG genes in any of the tumors tested. The PCR data were compared with immunohistochemical investigations of ovarian tumors at the protein level using CEA (26/3/13)-, NCA-50/90 (9A6FR) and NCA-95 (80H3)-specific monoclonal antibodies.
Virulence of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum is believed to relate to adhesion of parasitized erythrocytes to postcapillary venular endothelium (asexual cytoadherence). Transmission of malaria to the mosquito vector involves a switch from asexual to sexual development (gametocytogenesis). Continuous in vitro culture of P. falciparum frequently results in irreversible loss of asexual cytoadherence and gametocytogenesis. Field isolates and cloned lines differing in expression of these phenotypes were karyotyped by pulse-field gel electrophoresis. This analysis showed that expression of both phenotypes mapped to a 0.3-Mb subtelomeric deletion of chromosome 9. This deletion frequently occurs during adaptation of parasite isolates to in vitro culture. Parasites with this deletion did not express the variant surface agglutination phenotype and the putative asexual cytoadherence ligand designated P. falciparum erythrocyte membrane protein 1, which has recently been shown to undergo antigenic variation. The syntenic relationship between asexual cytoadherence and gametocytogenesis suggests that expression of these phenotypes is genetically linked. One explanation for this linkage is that both developmental pathways share a common cytoadherence mechanism. This proposed biological and genetic linkage between a virulence factor (asexual cytoadherence) and transmissibility (gametocytogenesis) would help explain why a high degree of virulence has evolved and been maintained in falciparum malaria.
The tumor marker carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) belongs to a family of proteins which are composed of one immunoglobulin variable domain and a varying number of immunoglobulin constant-like domains. Most of the membrane-bound members, which are anchored either by a glycosylphosphatidylinositol moiety or a transmembrane domain, have been shown to convey cell adhesion in vitro. Here we describe two splice variants of CGM1, a transmembrane member of the CEA family without immunoglobulin constant-like domains. CGM1a and CGM1c contain cytoplasmic domains of 71 and 31 amino acids, respectively. The cytoplasmic region of CGM1a is encoded by four exons (Cyt1-Cyt4). Differential splicing of the Cyt1 exon (53 bp) leads to the formation of CGM1c. The presence or absence of potential protein kinase phosphorylation sites in the cytoplasmic domains and a sequence consensus motif involved in signal transduction in multichain immune recognition receptors indicates that this splice event is of functional importance. CGM1a mRNA, the predominant CGM1 transcript, was found in the granulocytic lineage, but not in monocytes, lymphocytes nor in a number of tumors derived from all three germ layers. Weak staining using monoclonal antibodies Tu2 and 73 in fluorescence-activated cell scan analyses indicate low concentrations of CGM1 protein on the surface of granulocytes. The CGM1 protein is also recognized by CD66 antibodies. Therefore, the granulocyte-specific CD66 epitope is present on at least four CEA family members: CGM1, CEA, NCA-50/90 and NCA-160.