Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to S C Sharma.
Reticulate acropigmentation of Kitamura in a mother and her daughter is reported. Both demonstrated peri-orbital involvement in addition to involvement of acral areas, face and eyelids which has not been recorded before.
60 patients (45 male and 15 female) with suspected airborne contact dermatitis from Compositae (Asteraceae) plants and 20 age-matched controls (15 male and 5 female) were investigated. Patch tests were performed with ethanolic plant extracts of 4 Compositae plants, Parthenium hysterophorus, Chrysanthemum morifolium, Dahlia pinnata and Tagetes indica, all prevalent in northern India. 55 (92%) patients showed positive patch tests, with 35 (64%) demonstrating positive tests to extracts of only 1 of the 4 plants tested. No positive patch tests were seen in the controls. Parthenium hysterophorus (78%) was the most frequent plant reacting, followed by Chrysanthemum morifolium (42%), Dahlia pinnata (18%) and Tagetes indica (7%).
32 patients (24 male, 8 female) with contact dermatitis from Chrysanthemum morifolium are reported. 24 (75%) patients gave a history of seasonal variation and 16 (50%) of photoaggravation and/or photosensitivity. Exposure to chrysanthemums was occupational in 18 and recreational in 12. The common clinical presentations were hand and face dermatitis in 13 (41%) and airborne contact dermatitis in 10 (31%) patients. All 32 patients demonstrated positive patch tests to ethanolic extracts of the flowers, 30 to the leaves, 28 to the whole plant, and only 6 to the stems, in that order of intensity.
A girl aged 12 years having early acquired syphilis with a rare bilateral sabre-like tibial deformity is reported.
Candida Kefyr cells and their spheroplasts grown in media enriched with choline, N,N'-dimethylethanolamine (DMEA) or ethanolamine (EA) showed decreased concanavalin A (Con A) and ph to hemagglutinin (PHA) mediated agglutination while supplementation with N-monomethylethanolamine (MMEA) increased PHA-mediated agglutination. In all cases, the amount of phospholipid was increased and, consequently, a decrease in the free sterol; phospholipid ratio was observed except in the case of MMEA where this ratio remained almost unchanged. In the cells grown in media enriched with choline. DMEA or MMEA, but not in the EA-supplemented medium, the phosphatidylcholine to phosphatidylethanolamine ratio was increased. Saturation of fatty acids as well as their chain length decreased, which could lead to increased membrane fluidity. No breakpoint in Arrhenius plots of Mg2+ -ATPase of the choline-supplmented cells was observed. Cells grown in media enriched with EA and MMEA did not show any sharp break in Arrhenius plots of Mg2+ -ATPase.
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Epidermoid cysts in the central nervous system are rare tumours of controversial origin occurring mostly in the last adult age. We present here a series of four cases seen during the last five years. Their common clinical and histological features along with available literature have been discussed.
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Carcinoid tumours of the anorectum are very rare and comprise only 0.1 per cent of all rectal tumours. Their behaviour and treatment are still debatable. We identified 8 cases during a ten year period from records of two service hospitals; 6 were benign and 2 were malignant. Salient clinical and pathological features have been discussed. All benign tumours were cured by local treatment. Both patients with malignant tumours died despite radical surgical treatment.
Although several monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) have been reported that recognize antigens present in ganglion cells of the mammalian retina, these MAbs do not cross-react in the goldfish. In the current study we have identified a MAb that recognized a 14.4 kDa antigen that is present on the ganglion cells in the retinae of goldfish but is absent from the retinae of all other species that were tested. No other cell type in the goldfish retina or optic nerve was labeled with this MAb. Furthermore, the axons in the optic nerve, optic tract and the terminal layers in the optic tectum were labeled.
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In channel catfish the ganglion cell axons leave the retina via a ring of approximately 13 separate optic papillae. Each papilla serves an area of retina extending from the central zone of the retina to the periphery. Papillae located at a dorsal position in the ring serve exclusively dorsal retina. Ventrally located papillae, however, have an exaggerated peripheral retinal representation, so that they serve mostly ventral retina but also some areas of peripheral retina dorsal to the nasal and temporal poles. The ganglion cell axon bundles departing from the retina via individual papillae were labelled with horseradish peroxidase, and sections of the optic pathway were examined to reveal the topographic organization of the fibers. The topographic order of the optic nerve was dissimilar to that of cichlids and goldfish. Fibers from individual papillae remained together throughout the optic nerve. Close to the optic nerve head, the papillae were arranged as a continuum around the U-shaped optic nerve, without the discontinuity in the representation of the ventral retina seen in other fish. Fibers associated with the dorsal papillae were located at the tip of the caudolateral arm of the U, and fibers from ventral papillae were on the rostromedial arm. Fibers from nasally and temporally located papillae were found on the base of the U. By the level of the optic chiasm the U shape had flattened out but retained the relative ordering of the papillae. Rotation of the nerve as it became the optic tract brought the representation of the ventral papillae to the dorsal pole of the tract, and the dorsal papillae to the ventral tract. It was only in the optic tract that rearrangement of fibers became apparent. As described above, the axons of some ganglion cells in dorsal, peripheral retina left the retina and travelled through the optic nerve with axons from extreme ventral retina. In the optic tract, these dorsal fibers joined the main body of fibers from the dorsal retina. The significance of these observations for theories of fiber rearrangement is discussed.
Cardiac manifestations of the mucopolysaccharidoses often include valvular regurgitation, but stenotic lesions are quite rare. This report describes a 30-year-old man with mucopolysaccharidosis type II (Hunter's syndrome) and systemic lupus erythematosus who developed severe progressive aortic stenosis and died. Autopsy examination revealed evidence of various cardiac mucopolysaccharide disease including valvular leaflets thickened and distorted with fibrocalcific nodules. A brief review of previously reported valvular disease in Hunter's syndrome and other mucopolysaccharidoses is presented. This is also the first report of a patient with both systemic lupus and a mucopolysaccharidosis.
Episodes of myocardial ischemia in patients with coronary artery disease may be due to transient increases in coronary vasomotor tone superimposed on a fixed atherosclerotic obstruction. The purpose of this study was to determine whether identification of the clinical pattern of angina could predict the therapeutic response to the addition of nifedipine to a regimen of beta blockers and/or long-acting nitrates. Seventy-two patients with stable exertional angina were divided into two groups: "classic exertional angina" (17 patients), defined as exertional angina with a stable threshold; and "mixed angina" (55 patients), defined as exertional angina provoked by a variable threshold and/or at least two episodes of rest angina within the 3 months prior to screening. Patients were studied with nifedipine and placebo in a 6-week, double-blind, crossover design that used serial anginal diaries, exercise treadmill tests, and 24-hour ambulatory ECG monitoring. In patients with mixed angina, nifedipine reduced the frequency of angina compared to that during placebo treatment (13.1 vs 9.9 episodes/3 weeks, p less than 0.01) and reduced nitroglycerin consumption (11.7 vs 7.5 tablets/3 weeks, p less than 0.05); while in patients with classic exertional angina, nifedipine had no symptomatic effect (7.9 vs 6.8 anginal episodes/3 weeks, NS; 6.4 vs 5.8 nitroglycerin tablets/3 weeks, NS). Patients in both groups experienced a significant decrease in the manifestations of ischemia during exercise testing. Patients with mixed angina experienced a reduction in the daily frequency of painful episodes of ST segment depression during nifedipine treatment compared to placebo (0.6 vs 0.2 episodes, p less than 0.05), but there was no effect on the frequency of episodes of silent ischemia (4.2 vs 3.4 episodes, NS). In patients with classic exertional angina, the addition of nifedipine had no effect on any measure of ambulatory ischemia. We conclude that patients with mixed angina are more likely to benefit symptomatically from the addition of nifedipine therapy than patients with classic exertional angina. The lack of a consistently preferential response to nifedipine in patients with mixed angina, however, suggests that episodic coronary vasoconstriction may not be the only mechanism responsible for ischemia in these patients, and/or that nifedipine may not necessarily provide additional therapeutic benefit beyond that conferred by a regimen of beta blockers and/or nitrates.
Although fluoroscopically detected coronary artery calcification is known to correlate with the presence of coronary artery stenosis, age, sex, and extent of calcification influence the strength of this association. To clarify its diagnostic potential, we performed fluoroscopy before coronary angiography in 600 patients and analyzed the results according to all three factors simultaneously. The sensitivity of fluoroscopy for significant stenosis exceeded 65% in all groups except women less than 45 years of age. Specificity exceeded 90% in patients less than 45 years and 85% in patients less than 55 years of age, and declined significantly with age. The number of vessels calcified was an important determinant of predictive value, except in those less than 45 years of age in whom even a single mild calcification markedly increased the chance of stenosis. In patients aged 45 to 64 years, calcification of two or three vessels substantially increased the chances of stenosis, but single-vessel calcification increased the risk only slightly. In patients more than 65 years of age, fluoroscopy was not helpful in detecting stenosis, regardless of the number of vessels calcified. Our findings were similar in men and women. We conclude that if both age and the number of vessels calcified are considered, fluoroscopy can provide useful information regarding the presence of stenosis in young and middle-aged patients.
Successful treatment of oral submucous fibrosis with local injections of chymotrypsin, hyaluronidase, and dexamethasone is reported. In resistant cases, surgical excision of the fibrotic bands with submucosal placement of fresh human placental grafts was found to be successful.