Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to W D Thompson.
We report the clinical, laboratory and necropsy findings in the cases of two patients with homozygous alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency with a widespread distribution of panacinar emphysema.
Although concern has been voiced regarding the medical profession's relationship to nonmedicinal drug use, few data are available. In a random sample of more than 1,000 New Haven are a high school students, nonmedicinal use was 1.9 to 11 times greater among those students with a history of three or more recommendations of a psychoactive drug by a physician as compared to those students who had never received such a recommendation. The relationship between medicinal psychoactive drugs and nonmedicinal drug use persisted while potentially confounding variables were controlled and was statistically significant for cigarettes, marijuana, amphetamines, barbiturates, and heroin use with odds ratios of 2.0, 1.6, 3.1, 4.0 and 6.2, respectively. The relationships of cigarette, marijuana, amphetamine, and heroin use to physician recommendation of a psychoactive drug appeared to be as strong as those of previously identified correlates of nonmedicinal drug use. The results were not attributable to artifacts of reporting. Although causal mechanisms cannot be inferred from these cross-sectional data, the results may have implications for preventive programs aimed at decreasing nonmedicinal drug use.
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Data are presented on social functioning derived from a self-report social adjustment scale (SAS-SR) administered to 774 subjects including a community sample and three psychiatric outpatient populations: acute depressives, alcoholics, and schizophrenics. This self-report scale derives from an interview form and was developed and tested on depressed outpatients. Since its publication, it has been used in populations other than depressives including other psychiatric patients, nonpsychiatric patients, and nonpatients. The purpose of this paper is to make data available to other investigators on results of this self-report social adjustment scale in a broad range of subjects and to describe further the psychometric properties, limitations, and utility of the scale. Findings show that the scale has wide applicability in a range of subjects but that certain cautions should be followed in using it with chronically impaired psychiatric populations who may not be involved in the major roles assessed by the scale.
Collagen prolyl hydroxylase activity was measured in lung, liver, kidney and serum in rats killed on 7 successive days following a single toxic dose of paraquat. The enzyme activity in liver initially fell, then returned to normal, and no change was found in kidney. In contrast a 5-fold rise was observed in lung enzyme level, reaching of maximum on the 5th day. A parallel rise in serum activity was also found. The onset of these enzyme elevations corresponds to the early histological appearance of cellular proliferation in lung alveoli.
Using a radial immunodiffusion technique, the concentrations of eight serum proteins have been measured in sera from 60 chest clinic patients previously shown to have abnormally low alpha1-antitrypsin levels, and in 60 age and sex matched control sera. Of the proteins, only alpha2-macroglobulin showed a highly significant increase in the alpha1-antitrypsin deficient group. The findings confirm a previously reported association between alpha1-antitrypsin deficiency and increased alpha2-macroglobulin, and lend support to the suggestion that the rise in alpha2-macroglobulin is a specific compensatory response.
Only recently have multiple-drug use studies involving more than heroin and marijuana begun to be reported in the literature. Four of these studies have found evidence that multiple-drug use is a progressive phenomenon, although the particular pattern of multiple-drug use reported in different populations varies somewhat. This study examines the patterns of multiple-drug use reported by a random sample of 1,094 high school students living in greater New Haven, Conn in the 1972-1973 academic school year. Scalogram analysis reveals a progressive relationship for nine drugs: alcohol, marijuana, hashish, barbiturates, amphetamines, LSD, mescaline, cocaine, and heroin. Cigarettes and glue were not found to play a part in this pattern. The temporal order in which respondents reported that they had begun using each drug supports the results of scalogram analysis only in part.
The primary-secondary distinction in affective disorders has been proposed to reduce the heterogeneity of depression. An investigation of the frequency of secondary depression and its nature in depressed opiate addicts, alcoholics, and schizophrenics was undertaken. Findings show that secondary depression in ambulatory patients with other psychiatric disorders is relatively common. The sociodemographic characteristics of the secondary depressive are consistent with the population from which they derive but differ from primary depressives. The symptom patterns of secondary depressives are similar to primary depressives but are overall less severe. These findings give further support to the value of separating out secondary from primary depression in future research studies.
The results of this study showed that: 1. The design of a retainer with a mesial rest in conjunction with a buccal I-bar or a wrought-wire and cast lingual arm exhibited the most favorable distribution of vertically applied forces. 2. Retainer designs with a distal rest tend to move the clinical crown distally and the root mesially at the apex, resulting in horizontal forces in the bone. 3. Placing rests of distal-extension removable partial dentures more anteriorly provides an axis of rotation that directs applied forces in a more vertical direction. 4. The distal rest in conjunction with circumferential retainers developed greater horizontal forces within the supporting structures.
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A number of articles concerned with the epidemiology of heroin use which have appeared recently report that there has been a major "epidemic" of heroin use in the United States in the past decade and that the epidemic has been subsiding since about 1970. An examination of a number of biases inherent in the indirect measures of heroin use with which these conclusions have been reached and a growing body of direct, population-wide survey data indicates that these conclusions are not wholly warranted, and that if there was any epidemic of heroin use at all it was probably rather modest in intensity.
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A significant increase in non-organ specific autoantibodies is demonstrated in13 per cent of the sera from 202 patients with histologically proven malignancies, as compared with only 4 per cent of sera from 214 age and sex matched control patients. It appears that the incidence of autoantibodies is related to the histological type of the tumour but not to the presence or absence of tumour dissenmination. While the control group shows the expected increase in both incidence and titre of autoantibodies with increasing age, the malignant patients show no such pattern i.e. in cancer patients autoantibodies occur with equal frequency and at similar titres regardless of age. The absence of an age related increase in incidence and titre of non organ specific autoantibodies does not appear to have been reported previously. Our findings lend support to the hypothesis that cancer is associated with a breakdown of immunological surveillance, not only in old but also in young cancer patients. Thus the findings of non organ specific autoantibodies, especially to smooth muscle antigen, in an apparently healthy adult could be considered evidence of such a breakdown, carrying with it an increased risk of neoplasia.
This study presents a broad epidemiological approach to evaluation of drug education. Data on adolescent drug use and on drug-related beliefs and perceptions, collected yearly over a three-year period in 33 schools in the Greater New Haven area, were analyzed in relation to information on drug education programs in these schools. Changes in the general prevalence rates for the study period (1970-1973) and with age were the background against which the effects of the independent variable--presence or absence of specific drug education activities in the various schools--were explored. While the overall evidence suggested that drug education does not have a strong, across-the-board influence on either drug use rates or beliefs and perceptions, more modest and specific effects were noted which have implications for drug education.