The trauma room: a "one-stop shop" for diagnosis and treatment?
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to P Hilbert.
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Following systematic skull imaging of hundred and sixty seven individuals attending a medical referral centre for the deaf in Brussels, Belgium, fifteen patients (9 per cent) aged between two and 25 years were diagnosed with dilatation of the vestibular aqueduct. Careful audiological study, with a baseline assessment then longitudinal follow up, indicated mild to profound deafness with a progressive course (i.e. an average loss of 3.3 dB per year) and frequent dizziness. Sequencing of PDS was performed in all individuals. Alterations of this gene (either homozygous, heterozygous or compound heterozygous base changes) were found in 53 per cent of patients with a large vestibular aqueduct. Four new mutations (two missense, a splice site and a four base pair insertion) were described. We were unable to confirm a correlation between homozygosity, heterozygosity and a Pendred or deafness-only phenotype.
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BACKGROUND: Clinically unrecognized thrombosis with the danger of a pulmonary embolism represents an underestimated problem in surgical ICU patients. In patients undergoing total hip replacement for instance, over 30% develop a clinically inapparent form of thrombosis, despite initial thrombosis prophylaxis. We tried to recognize clinically inapparent thrombosis in long-term intensive care patients using D-dimer screening and ultrasound imaging. METHODS: All surgical long-term ICU patients received intravenous heparin 5-10 IU/kg body weight and a D-dimer was assay was carried out every 2 days. If the D-dimer level surpassed 2 mg/l, ultrasound imaging of the veins in the legs, pelvis, arms and neck was performed. RESULTS: Included in the study were 50 patients and D-dimer levels above 2 mg/l were detected in 38%. A thrombosis was proven in 63% of the patients with D-dimer values above 2 mg/l and 50% of the thrombosis were detected in the arm and neck veins very often associated with intravenous catheters. CONCLUSION: Routine D-dimer screening and specific use of ultrasound imaging appears to be a valuable method to verify clinically inapparent thromboses in surgical ICU patients.
INTRODUCTION: In the treatment of the seriously injured patient, time is crucial. Clarke et al. showed that in the hypotensive patient with blunt abdominal trauma and bleeding a delay in the surgical treatment over 90 min increases mortality of 1 % every 3 minutes. So called trauma algorithms are used as systematic approach to the seriously injured patient that can be easily reviewed and practiced. One impact of this algorithm is to shorten time in the emergency room and may improve outcome of the patient. The patient outcome is directly related to the length of time between the injury and the beginning to proper definitive care. OBJECTIVE: Are improvements still necessary and possible in the care of the seriously injured patient? New technical developments like multislice-CT are able to shorten time until definitive care. The practicability of an multislice-CT orientated treatment algorithm was evaluated. METHODS: After integration of an multislice-CT into the emergency room the treatment of the seriously injured patient (ISS >16) was changed. Therefore an algorithm which puts the CT diagnostics in the first minutes of the clinical care was developed. RESULTS: 50 patients were treated following the new algorithm. The time in the emergency room decreased from 87 min to 36 min. CONCLUSION: This algorithm requires a differing from previous surgical standards, but it proved to be timesaving, effective and practicable. It makes the beginning of the definitive care possible within the first 40 min after patient arrival in the emergency room.
We report on the case of a 45-year-old female with beta receptor antagonist intoxication after swallowing about 30 tablets of Cordanum (Talinolol) with suicidal intent. The out of hospital and clinical management is discussed. Prior to admission to hospital the patient only showed a few signs of intoxication such as hypotension, central symptoms and cyanosis. There was no bradycardia but during treatment she developed cardiac arrest. Out of hospital it was possible to stabilise the circulation with catecholamines (norepinephrin) and the transport to hospital was uneventful but only a few minutes after hospital admission the patient developed cardiac arrest. After initially successful CPR the patient died some hours later in the intensive care unit.
The authors report the case of a 49-year old man in whom an inaugural portal vein thrombosis led to the diagnosis of hereditary hemochromatosis. In this case, the increase in ferritinemia and the T2-weighted MRI hepatic segmental hyposignal were considered as consequences of tissular necrosis while they did probe a real iron overload. Genetic testing, revealing C282Y/H63D compound heterozygoty, provided evidence for a diagnosis of hereditary hemochromatosis. Weekly venesections induced a calculated iron depletion of 3.5 g without occurrence of anemia, further supporting the diagnosis. We suggest that hemochromatosis should be considered in the differential diagnosis of idiopathic portal vein thrombosis when signs of abnormal iron accumulation exist.
The Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) and the Angelman syndrome (AS) are caused by the loss of function of imprinted genes in proximal 15q. In approximately 2%-4% of patients, this loss of function is due to an imprinting defect. In some cases, the imprinting defect is the result of a parental imprint-switch failure caused by a microdeletion of the imprinting center (IC). Here we describe the molecular analysis of 13 PWS patients and 17 AS patients who have an imprinting defect but no IC deletion. Heteroduplex and partial sequence analysis did not reveal any point mutations of the known IC elements, either. Interestingly, all of these patients represent sporadic cases, and some share the paternal (PWS) or the maternal (AS) 15q11-q13 haplotype with an unaffected sib. In each of five PWS patients informative for the grandparental origin of the incorrectly imprinted chromosome region and four cases described elsewhere, the maternally imprinted paternal chromosome region was inherited from the paternal grandmother. This suggests that the grandmaternal imprint was not erased in the father's germ line. In seven informative AS patients reported here and in three previously reported patients, the paternally imprinted maternal chromosome region was inherited from either the maternal grandfather or the maternal grandmother. The latter finding is not compatible with an imprint-switch failure, but it suggests that a paternal imprint developed either in the maternal germ line or postzygotically. We conclude (1) that the incorrect imprint in non-IC-deletion cases is the result of a spontaneous prezygotic or postzygotic error, (2) that these cases have a low recurrence risk, and (3) that the paternal imprint may be the default imprint.
We report the case of a 20 year-old caucasian woman who presented a primary subcutaneous panniculitis-like T-cell lymphoma (SPTCL) as an invasive tumor of the chest wall. Herein, the neoplastic cells were found to express a CD3+CD8+ phenotype but also displayed variably the natural killer (NK)-associated antigens CD56 and CD57 as well as granzyme B. On cytological examination, these cells showed a large granular lymphocyte (LGL)-like morphology with presence of azurophilic granules in their cytoplasm. Electron dense and membrane bound granules like those found in cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) were also demonstrated by electron microscopy. Neither rearrangement of the T-cell receptor subunits nor Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) genome was observed at the molecular level. The LGL-like features of the neoplastic cells found in this case and the presence of NK-associated antigens provide additional support to the cytotoxic derivation of most SPTCL.
Factor V Leiden is characterised by a point mutation which prevents the physiologic inhibition of activated factor V by activated protein C (Activated Protein C Resistance). This mutation is now considered as the most frequent inherited thrombophilic disorder. It is found in about 20% of patients with venous thrombotic disease, far before ATIII, Protein C and S deficiency. Its prevalence (4% in the general belgian population, 1 to 15% in Europa) allows frequent associations with other thrombophilic disorders, inherited or acquired, such as contraceptive pill. Biological testing are now ready for screening, but the opportunity of a systematic evaluation in front of a risk situation remains a matter to discussion.
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Several genetic loci involved in blood pressure regulation have recently been localized in experimental models of hypertension, but the manner in which they influence blood pressure remains unknown. Here, we report a study of the Lyon hypertensive rat strain showing that different loci are involved in the regulation of steady-state (diastolic pressure) and pulsatile (systolic-diastolic, or pulse pressure) components of blood pressure. Significant linkage was established between diastolic blood pressure and a microsatellite marker of the renin gene (REN) on rat chromosome 13, and between pulse pressure and the carboxypeptidase B gene (CPB) on chromosome 2. These findings show that two independent loci influence different haemodynamic components of blood pressure, and that pulse pressure has a specific genetic determination.
OBJECTIVES: The SA-gene shows markedly higher levels of expression in the kidneys of spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) than in their non-hypertensive reference strain, the Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rat. Based on the important role of the kidney in blood pressure regulation, the possibility has been raised that this gene, the translational product of which remains unknown, may participate in the pathogenesis of primary hypertension. The present study was conducted to test this hypothesis and to ascertain the chromosomal localization of the SA-gene. DESIGN: A cosegregation study was performed using an F2 intercross between stroke-prone SHR (SHRSP) and WKY rats, and a previously described restriction fragment length polymorphism of the SA-gene for characterization of genotype. Mapping of the SA-gene was accomplished by screening a somatic cell-hybrid panel and by linkage group analysis. RESULTS: A statistically significant difference in systolic blood pressure was found after sodium loading, but not under basal conditions between groups of rats defined by zygosity at the SA locus, consistent with a hypertensive effect of the SHRSP allele. No effect of SA genotype on diastolic blood pressure was observed. The SA-gene was localized on rat chromosome 1. CONCLUSIONS: This study establishes the SA locus on chromosome 1 as a region in which a gene or genes contributing to blood pressure regulation in this model are localized, and provides further evidence for a possible role of the SA-gene in the pathogenesis of hypertension.
One hundred and seventy-four rat loci which contain short tandem repeat sequences were extracted from the GenBank or EMBL data bases and used to define primers for amplification by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) of the microsatellite regions, creating PCR-formatted sequence-tagged microsatellite sites (STMSs). One hundred and thirty-four STMSs for 118 loci, including 6 randomly cloned STMSs, were characterized: (i) PCR-analyzed loci were assigned to specific chromosomes using a panel of rat x mouse somatic cell hybrid clones. (ii) Length variation of the STMSs among 8 inbred rat strains could be visualized at 85 of 107 loci examined (79.4%). (iii) A genetic map, integrating biochemical, coat color, mutant and restriction fragment length polymorphism loci, was constructed based on the segregation of 125 polymorphic markers in seven rat backcrosses and in two F2 crosses. Twenty four linkage groups were identified, all of which were assigned to a defined chromosome. As a reflection of the bias for coding sequences in the public data bases, the STMSs described herein are often associated with genes. Hence, the genetic map we report coincides with a gene map. The corresponding map locations of the homologous mouse and human genes are also listed for comparative mapping purposes.
The spontaneously hypertensive rat and the stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rat are useful models for human hypertension. In these strains hypertension is a polygenic trait, in which both autosomal and sex-linked genes can influence blood pressure. Linkage studies in crosses between the stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rat and the normotensive control strain Wistar-Kyoto have led to the localization of two genes, BP/SP-1 and BP/SP-2, that contribute significantly to blood pressure variation in the F2 population. BP/SP-1 and BP/SP-2 were assigned to rat chromosomes 10 and X, respectively. Comparison of the human and rat genetic maps indicates that BP/SP-1 could reside on human chromosome 17q in a region that also contains the angiotensin I-converting enzyme gene (ACE). This encodes a key enzyme of the renin-angiotensin system, and is therefore a candidate gene in primary hypertension. A rat microsatellite marker of ACE was mapped to rat chromosome 10 within the region containing BP/SP-1.
To find a marker for the bovine "muscular hypertrophy" gene and for the "roan" locus, we have typed six cattle pedigrees totaling 540 animals for nine blood group systems, for 12 biochemical markers, for RFLPs at four loci, and with five probes revealing multilocus DNA fingerprints. Segregation analysis of the fingerprint bands showed that, in cattle, a fingerprint probe will reveal a mean of 7.6 clearly resolvable bands, behaving as simple, highly informative Mendelian entities characterized by a mean mutation rate of +/- 1/4500 gametes. For one of the bands, we observed a "mutation burst" generating germline mosaicism. Because some of the fingerprint bands were allelic or corresponded to clustered minisatellites, a mean of only 5.7 independent loci is explored per probe. Fingerprint bands revealed by different probes also show a clear propensity for close linkage, pointing toward nonrandom distribution of minisatellite sequences or the existence of minisatellite clusters. Although this reduces the power of fingerprints for linkage analysis substantially, we were able to demonstrate genetic linkage between fingerprint bands and at least three of the classical markers, to exclude the roan locus from 4.5 Morgans of the bovine genome with the DNA fingerprints and for an additional 2.5 Morgans with the classical markers, and to identify a solid candidate marker for the bovine muscular hypertrophy gene, yielding a lod score greater than or equal to 2.84 without any obliged recombinant.
Five bovine paternal half-sib pedigrees for a total of 527 individuals were typed for six blood group systems: A, B, F/V, L, S, Z; for nine biochemical polymorphisms: ADA, MPI, PGM-3(slow), NP, Gc, Pi2, Tf, Ptf1 and Ptf2; and for restriction fragment length polymorphisms at five autosomal loci: Tg, GH, LDLr, BoLA-DQ and BoLA-DY. Two of the pedigrees were informative for segregation at the 'muscular hypertrophy' locus, and one was informative at the coat colour determining 'roan' locus. Linkage analysis was performed between all markers. Linkage was demonstrated between the S and F/V blood group systems (z = 3.11), adding one locus to the previously identified linkage group VII (LGVII) [Pi-2 and S], the most likely order being Pi2-S-F/V with maximum likelihood recombination rates of 0.208 and 0.211. Also shown to be linked were the blood group systems B and Z (z = 5.7, theta = 0.245). We confirmed the observation previously made by Andersson et al. (1988) of a high recombination rate between class II genes DQ and DY, suggesting either a larger physical distance between those genes than expected from comparative data, or the presence of a 'recombinational hotspot' in the bovine major histocompatibility complex. No linkage was found either with the 'muscular hypertrophy' locus, or with the 'roan' locus. However, these two loci could be excluded from respectively 1.7 and 2.5 Morgans of the bovine genome.
New DNA sequence polymorphisms were identified at four bovine autosomal loci: growth hormone, low density lipoprotein receptor, alpha-subunit of glycoprotein hormones and thyroglobulin. Assuming independent assortment between these polymorphisms, the probabilities to be heterozygous at these four loci are 0.48, 0.36, 0.10 and 0.77 respectively, within the Belgian Blue Cattle breed (BBCB). Nucleotide diversity was estimated, showing that animals from the BBCB are heterozygous for 1/1450 nucleotides, a value significantly lower than the 1/500 value found in man. Moreover, we have estimated that the mutation rate at the cytosines of CG dinucleotides is about 10 times higher than that for other nucleotides.