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Biomedical subjects

J Wolff

Publications and source records attributed to J Wolff.

329 records · Page 19Linked to original sources
PubMedDate not supplied

[Assessment of independence in daily life in pediatric oncology by FMH-questionnaire].

Therapy-related late effects are important for therapeutic decisions in pediatric oncology. We quantified the degree of impairment of independence in daily life in children with cancer. The German questionnaire "Fertigkeitenskala Münster/Heidelberg (FMH)" is a standardized tool for measurement of motoric and verbal functioning. A point-score leads to an age-related percentile ranking similar to typical percentiles in pediatrics. We used the FMH in 215 cancer patients (mean age 10.3 years, range 0.5-23.5 years, 56.3% male). Diagnoses were leukaemia (n = 91), bone tumors (n = 33), nephro- and neuroblastoma (n = 21), brain tumors (n = 18), lymphoma (n = 23), rhabdomyosarcoma (n = 11) and others (n = 18). The average time to answer the questionnaire was 4.5 min. Patients with brain and bone tumors showed significant lower percentile scores compared to patients with other diagnoses (p < 0.05). The FMH-scores increased with time since diagnosis (n = 215). This trend was confirmed in a longitudinal study over one year (n = 29). Quantitative assessment of independence and functioning in patients with cancer--especially in multicenter-studies--is possible. Because of therapy-related late effects this seems to be of special importance in brain and bone tumor patients.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Treatment of renal cancer patients with gemcitabine (2',2'-difluorodeoxycytidine) and interferons: antitumor activity and toxicity.

Combined therapy of gemcitabine with interferons on patients with histologically confirmed metastatic renal cell carcinoma is reported. Patients had an unfavourable disease due to documented tumor progression after various interferon-alpha-based immunotherapy (26 weeks on average). The median number of metastatic sites was 6.1 per patient and 78% of the patients exhibited >/= 4 lesions. Nine evaluable patients received at least 6 doses of gemcitabine and 8 doses of interferon-gamma. Overall, therapy resulted in a remission rate of 15% (4 x partial response; 4 x minor response) for single measurable lesions (n=53). Remissions were more often found for lesions, that did not progress at baseline evaluation (n=30; OR: 20%), compared to 8.7% for sites in progression (n=23). However, as a result of therapy, 43.5% of the progressive lesions did not continue to progress. Although only one of nine patients finally overall achieved a minor remission and one patient a stable disease, the median time to tumor progression (6.1 months) and the median survival (13.5 months) was favourable. In conclusion, the combination of gemcitabine and interferon demonstrated cytotoxic and cytostatic effects on metastases of renal cell carcinoma at a tolerable toxicity, thus controlled clinical studies for first line therapy with gemcitabine and interferon are in progress.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Age-variant and age-invariant rhythmicities in the cortical and hippocampal electrical activities of neonatal rats.

The neocortical and hippocampal electrical activities were studied in 8, 15, 22, and 29-day-old rats. Segments of EEG recorded for 4 hours were analyzed by means of fast Fourier transformation. The sleep-wake activity stages were determined. The developments in the neocortical and hippocampal EEG activities were characterized by the gradual appearance of adult-like EEG waves and a shift towards higher frequencies in the theta wave range of the hippocampal electrical activity. The power value in the theta range, however, exhibited age-invariant rhythmicities with cycle lengths of about 9.5-11 and 16-22 min. The manifestation of such an age-invariant rhythm can be interpreted as an electrical manifestation of the rest-activity cycle originally described by KLEITMAN25.

Activity Cycles↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Inefficacy of fresh frozen plasma in the treatment of L-asparaginase-induced coagulation factor deficiencies during ALL induction therapy.

A prospective longitudinal study was conducted to determine whether single-donor fresh frozen plasma (FFP) substitution was able to influence L-asparaginase-associated hypoproteinemia. Within a 36-month period, 20 of 42 children with ALL received a total of 42 prophylactic FFP doses at a median of 10 (5-20) mliter/kg when fibrinogen levels decreased to < 60 mg/dL and thrombin time was lengthened. Laboratory monitoring before, during and after FFP substitution showed no short-term improvements and demonstrated only a minimal increase in fibrinogen and alpha 2-antiplasmin. Plasma levels of antithrombin and plasminogen remained unchanged. Furthermore, administration of FFP had no influence on thrombin generation, the plasmin/alpha 2-antiplasmin complex or enhanced D-dimer formation.

Afibrinogenemia↗