Biomedical subjects
T Cassina
Publications and source records attributed to T Cassina.
[Endophthalmitis and pseudophakia].
The authors describe seven cases of endophthalmitis following cataract surgery and intraocular lens implantation. The patients were treated with antibiotics together with mydriatics or with mydriatics and antiinflammatory medication only. Rapid healing of the endophthalmitis was observed in both series, with good restitution of visual acuity. According to various articles on this complication, approximately 75% of the aqueous humor samples taken are bacteriologically positive. The present authors therefore took samples of aqueous humor intraoperatively in randomly chosen cases, in order to establish whether there were any false-positive results due to external contamination. A brief review of the literature is presented.
Low-pH method for the enzymatic assay of D-glucaric acid in urine.
The enzymatic methods for measuring D-glucaric acid in urine are based on the conversion of D-glucaric acid into its 1,4-lactone and measurement of inhibition of 1,4-lactone against beta-glucuronidase at pH 5.0. All the enzymatic methods described suffer from the disadvantage of a procedure that is complicated and inherently inaccurate, because the nature of glucaric acid/1,4-lactone equilibrium has not been properly considered in the development of such methods. After elucidating the factors influencing glucaric acid/1,4 lactone equilibrium in more detail, a low-pH enzymatic method has been developed in which the 1,4-lactone is formed in the urine sample by acid boiling at pH 3.8 and assayed at the same pH using beta-glucuronidase from Limpets. This procedure allows the acid/lactone equilibrium to remain stable during both the lactonization step and the enzymatic assay. The coefficient of variation for the proposed method (within-run and between-day precision) was from 4.2 to 8.7. The analytical recovery varied from 92-108%.
[Health surveillance: from risk presumption to risk assessment].
A working group of the Occupational Medicine and Industrial Hygiene Association of Lombardy, the National Association of Occupational Health Physicians the National Society of Prevention Operators made a paper in order to rationalize the sanitary surveillance, observing the laws in force and following the European Directives. The authors, thinking that everyday experience not very useful health examinations are carried out and that the sanitary surveillance should be planned according to the real working risks, give methodological directives about the way to make the mandatory clinical examinations less frequent, to the firms, to the occupational health physician and to the public occupational health operators of the local health units that must supervise the sanitary surveillance.
[Application of article 35 of the DPR 303/56: experience of the competent physicians].
The "competent" doctor is much interested in the extensive application of the article 35 of DPR 303/56. As a matter of fact, that permits him a sanitary surveillance less concerned in formal performances and more related to work risk. The employers are often reluctant to require the derogation foreseen by the article 35 of DPR 303/56 because from such a request interventions on part the vigilance organ could derive causing instruction report report, notices and sanctions regarding situation independent from the risk which the derogation was requested. As a result, the modality for the derogation application has to be uniform all over the territory: an action at regional level is strictly necessary as well as check activity on part of the competent offices of the region.
[Competent occupational physicians: privileges from the UOOML].
The author analyzes the role of the workphysician in order to the new laws of prevention, safety and health promotion on the work-places. Especially, the author emphasizes the synergic actions and the collaborations between workphysicians and public health structures, as the Hospital Units for Occupational Medicine.