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P Kalra

Publications and source records attributed to P Kalra.

6 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1997

Liver of the "visible man".

Endoscopic surgery, also called minimally invasive surgery, is presumed drastically to reduce postoperative morbidity and thus to offer both human and economic benefits. For the surgeon, however, this approach leads to a number of gestural challenges that require extensive training to be mastered. In order to replace experimentation on animals and patients, we developed a simulator for endoscopic surgery. To achieve this goal, a first step was to develop a working prototype, a "standard patient," on which the informatic and microengineering tools could be validated. We used the visible man dataset for this purpose. The external shape of the visible man's liver, his biliary passages, and his extrahepatic portal system turned out to be fully within the standard pattern of normal anatomy. Anatomic variations were observed in the intrahepatic right portal vein, the hepatic veins, and the arterial blood supply to the liver. Thus, the visible man dataset reveals itself to be well suited for the simulation of minimally invasive surgical operation such as endoscopic cholecystectomy.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

Infectious endocarditis and sudden unexpected death: incidence and morphology of lesions in intravenous addicts and non-drug abusers.

BACKGROUND: Intravenous drug (IVD) use is a wellknown risk factor for infectious endocarditis (IE), but there are few morphologic and epidemiologic data comparing IVD-related and non-IVD-related IE in cases of sudden death. MATERIAL AND RESULTS: Between 1992 and 1994, acute IE was diagnosed in 13 IVD users at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Maryland, indicating a yearly incidence of IE-related sudden unexpected deaths of 12 per 100,000. Eleven (85%) cases of acute IE occurred on apparently previously normal valves, and there was one unicuspid valve and one infected porcine prosthesis. There were three right-sided (tricuspid) lesions (23%), nine left-sided lesions (69%), and one multivalvular lesion (8%). During the same period, there were five cases of healed IE in IVD abusers, three of which involved the tricuspid valve. The prevalence of incidental healed lesions in autopsies of IVD users was 0.2%. The healed tricuspid lesions consisted of smooth-edged defects in the valve leaflet without perforations characteristic of mitral or aortic IE. The mean age of the deceased with healed lesions was 45 +/- 6 years versus 34 +/- 10 years for those with acute endocarditis (p = 0.03). During the same time period, there were six cases of acute IE among non-drug users, indicating a yearly incidence of sudden unexpected death of 0.04 per 100,000. Acute IE occurred on congenitally malformed (n = 5) or prosthetic (n = 1) valves. There were two cases of incidental healed IE (mitral and aortic valves), indicating a prevalence of 0.02%. CONCLUSION: IVD users are 300 times more likely to die suddenly with IE than non-IVD users, and healed lesions are 25 times more common. Healed IE of the tricuspid valve is associated with IVD abuse, and has a characteristic gross appearance that differs from healed left-sided IE.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Human trophoblast cell resistance to decidual NK lysis is due to lack of NK target structure.

We have previously shown that human cultured trophoblast cells are resistant to lysis by natural killer (NK) cells from both peripheral blood and decidua although cells are present in decidua which do exhibit NK activity against K562(1). Using a cold-target inhibition assay and a single-cell conjugate assay we have now examined whether these trophoblast cells have NK target structures on their surfaces. Our findings indicate that first-trimester human trophoblast cells do not express surface structures recognized by decidual Leu19+ (CD56+) large granular lymphocytes (LGLs) isolated from human decidua. Immunostaining of the conjugates formed between decidual NK effectors and K562 cells confirmed that these effector cells are CD56+ LGLs.

Antigens, Differentiation, T-Lymphocyte↗