Biomedical subjects
P Wright
Publications and source records attributed to P Wright.
Substance abuse and mandatory drug testing in health care institutions.
Substance abuse in the workplace is a problem of enormous proportions. Hospitals, like other organizations, must recognize the potential risks posed by substance abuse and effectively deal with the problem. A nationwide study was conducted of hospital personnel managers' attitudes toward drug abuse and mandatory drug testing. The study focuses on the policies hospitals have formulated and reveals hospital administrators' concerns over the legality of mandatory testing.
A comparison of acetaminophen and rimantadine in the treatment of influenza A infection in children.
Rimantadine was compared with acetaminophen in a double-blind randomly assigned therapeutic trial in 63 children presenting with influenzal symptoms. Forty-nine of the children were proven to have influenza A by culture on presentation. Forty-three of the cultures, 88%, were influenza A/H1N1 strains. Both drugs were well tolerated. Rimantadine lowered the amount of virus shed in the first 2 days after initiation of therapy. Clinical resolution of illness was not different between the two therapeutic modalities. In individuals who shed virus for 4 days, strains recovered on the last day were relatively resistant to rimantadine.
Enzyme immunoassay: observations on aspects of quality control.
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Fluorophotometric measurements of tear turnover rate in normal healthy persons: evidence for a circadian rhythm.
The determination of tear turnover rate in a total of 16 normal healthy volunteers is described. A continuous reading fluorophotometer is used to measure the fluorescence resulting from the instillation of 1 microliter of 2 per cent fluorescein into the eye. A mean (+/- s.d.) turnover rate of 14.9 +/- 5.6 per cent per minute is found, in agreement with previously reported values. Morning and afternoon measurements on the same subject show that morning tear turnover rates are significantly higher than those in the afternoon (p less than 0.01), suggesting a circadian rhythm in tear flow. It is also concluded that use of a 10 per cent fluorescein solution can lead to a significant underestimation of tear turnover rates and that any resulting errors are likely to be larger for light coloured irises.
Effect of osmolarity of artificial tear drops on relief of dry eye symptoms: BJ6 and beyond.
Patients with clinically well defined keratoconjunctivitis sicca (KCS) participated in two trials of hypo-osmolar tear substitutes. The trials were double masked, single crossover studies with computer generated random order allocation and were conducted by postal questionnaire. In the first trial a hypo-osmolar formulation using polyvinylpyrrolidone and hydroxyethyl cellulose was compared with the patients' usual treatment (BJ6 or hypromellose) and found to be inferior, especially in respect of blurring and stickiness caused by higher viscosity. In the second trial hypo-osmolar preparations of BJ6 and hypromellose were compared with their iso-osmolar equivalents and found not to be significantly different in their effects. Hypo-osmolarity alone does not seem to guarantee relief of symptoms in KCS. Other factors including viscosity and colloid osmotic pressure may be more significant.
Adverse reactions to guanethidine eye drops.
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Hematological measurements in rats flown on Spacelab shuttle, SL-3.
Previous studies have shown that a decrease in red cell mass occurs in astronauts, and some studies indicate a leukocytosis occurs. A life science module housing young and mature rats was flown on shuttle mission Spacelab 3 (SL-3), and the results of hematology studies of flight and control rats are presented. Statistically significant increases in the hematocrit, red blood cell counts, and hemoglobin determinations, together with a mild neutrophilia and lymphopenia, were found in flight animals. No significant changes were found in bone marrow and spleen cell differentials or erythropoietin determinations. Clonal assays demonstrated an increased erythroid colony formation of flight animal bone marrow cells at erythropoietin doses of 0.02 and 1.0 U/ml but not 0.20 U/ml. These results agree with some but vary from other previously published studies. Erythropoietin assays and clonal studies were performed for the first time.
A new species of Hapalemur (primates) from south east Madagascar.
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A guide to collaborative research.
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Bone particles from osteopetrotic mice not cured by bone marrow transplants are resorbed in normal littermates.
Osteosclerotic (oc/oc) and osteopetrotic (op/op) mice are not cured by bone marrow transplantation from normal littermates. The possibility that this is due to production of poorly resorbable bone was examined by comparing the fate of mutant and normal bone particles implanted subcutaneously in normal hosts. Bone, removed aseptically from calvarial and tibial sites of normal littermates and mutants, was cleaned of adherent soft tissue, ground and sieved to a particle size of 70-300 micron. Aliquots (17-20 mg) of bone from each phenotype of each stock were pelleted and implanted beneath the anterior thoracic skin of normal littermates for two weeks. Particle density in tissue sections was determined as percent of field by a point-counting method. Giant cell response was recorded as number per high-power field. Percent bone present initially was determined in pellets implanted for less than 24 hr. Bone particles were reduced in each pellet with time, about 25% of the original volume being removed in two weeks. No statistically significant differences were noted in the rates of disappearance of mutant and normal bone or in the percentage or number of giant cells in implants of mutant and normal bone in either stock. Furthermore, these values were not different from identical studies in microphthalmic mice, an osteopetrotic stock cured by bone marrow transplantation. These data suggest that the failure of osteopetrotic and osteosclerotic mice to be cured by bone marrow transplants from normal littermates is not due to the presence of unresorbable bone.
Do breast-feeding mothers know how hungry their babies are?
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The vector homology problem in diagnostic nucleic acid hybridization of clinical specimens.
Nucleic acid hybridization techniques using cloned probes are finding application in assays of clinical specimens in research and diagnostic laboratories. The probes that we and others have used are recombinant plasmids composed of viral inserts and bacterial plasmid vectors such as pBR322. We suspected that there was material homologous to pBR322 present in many clinical samples. because hybridization occurred in samples which lacked evidence of virus by other techniques. If the presence of this vector-homologous material was unrecognized, hybridization in the test sample might erroneously be interpreted as indicating the presence of viral sequences. In this paper we demonstrate specific hybridization of labeled pBR322 DNA with DNA from various clinical samples. Evidence is presented that nonspecific probe trapping could not account for this phenomenon. In mixing experiments, it is shown that contamination of clinical samples with bacteria would explain such a result. Approaches tested to circumvent this problem included the use of isolated insert probes, alternate cloning vectors, and cold competitor pBR322 DNA in prehybridization and hybridization mixes. None proved entirely satisfactory. We therefore emphasize that it is essential that all hybridization detection systems use a control probe of the vector alone in order to demonstrate the absence of material with vector homology in the specimen tested.
Effect of buflomedil on behaviour, memory, and intellectual capacity in patients with dementia. A placebo-controlled study.
A double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical study of the efficacy and safety of buflomedil in the treatment of dementia was conducted in 55 patients. A statistically significant improvement was achieved for such characteristics as mood, self-care, alertness, emotional lability, indifference, hostility, and anxiety. Compared with placebo, buflomedil showed a clear superiority with regard to improvement in cognitive dysfunction and psychosomatic dysfunction, with a trend toward statistical significance in improvement in interpersonal relations. Secondary analysis of a subset of patients without evidence of earlier cerebrovascular accident showed similar clinical responses and statistical findings. Buflomedil was well tolerated.
Acanthamoeba keratitis successfully treated medically.
The first medical cure of a corneal infection due to an Acanthamoeba species is reported. The 44-year-old patient developed a suppurative keratitis associated with an epithelial defect, hypopyon, and secondary glaucoma. Acanthamoeba was confirmed as the causative agent four months after presentation when positive cultures were obtained from the cornea and from the conjunctiva. Sensitivity studies of the isolated organism were performed, and the infection was successfully controlled by treatment with a combination of dibromopropamidine and propamidine isethionate ointment and drops and neomycin drops. Keratoplasty was performed 22 months after onset, and no viable acanthamoebae were present in the resected tissue, though possible cyst remnants were identified by immunofluorescent techniques.
Hematologic parameters of astrorats flown on SL-3.
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Normal tear production and drainage.
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