Case Report: Secondary biliary cirrhosis possibly related to congenital hepatic fibrosis. Evidence for decreased number of portal branch veins and hypertrophic peribiliary vascular plexus

A 30-year-old man with presinusoidal portal hypertension was transplanted for cryptogenic cirrhosis. On the explanted liver, few intrahepatic stones, biliary cirrhosis, chronic cholangitis of the large bile ducts and a peculiar proliferation of small dilated bile ducts at the periphery of the portal tracts led to the diagnosis of secondary biliary cirrhosis and cholangitis, possibly linked to ductal plate malformation, including congenital hepatic fibrosis associated with a minor form of Caroli's disease. Ex vivo portogram and histology showed the paucity of portal vein branches and the hypertrophy of the peribiliary vascular plexus. This hypertrophy, which has been reported in livers with presinusoidal hypertension, is another indirect argument to suggest the diagnosis of congenital hepatic fibrosis.     

Different cortical activation patterns in blind and sighted humans during encoding and transformation of haptic images

In this study, we investigated whether the occipital cortex of blind humans is activated during haptic perception and/or transformation of a haptic image. Slow event-related brain potentials were monitored from 18 electrodes in 12 sighted and 15 congenitally blind participants while they were engaged in a haptic mental rotation task. In both groups, slow negative shifts appeared over (a) the frontal cortex at the beginning of each processing episode, (b) the left-central to parietal cortex during encoding and maintaining of a haptic image, and (c) the central to parietal cortex during image transformation. A pronounced slow negative potential over the occipital cortex emerged only in the blind individuals and was time-locked to the processing epochs. Its amplitude increased with the amount of processing load. The slow wave effects observed in the blind individuals could indicate that occipital areas participate in specific, nonvisual functions or they could reflect a coactivation of these areas whenever the activation level of task-specific processing modules located elsewhere in the cortex is raised by nonspecific thalamocortical input.     

ALCOHOL DEPENDENCE: IS CARBOHYDRATE-DEFICIENT TRANSFERRIN A MARKER FOR ALCOHOL INTAKE?

We investigated %CDT (carbohydrate-deficient transferrin) in92 ethanol-intoxicated alcohol-dependent patients after consecutiveadmission to hospital and followed them for 28 days under controlledconditions. At admission, 63% (58 patients) showed elevatedCDT (>2.5%) and 34 patients (37%) had normal CDT levels (<2.5%).No correlation of the %CDT values to alcohol-related disabilities,severity of the withdrawal syndrome, alcohol-drinking patternbefore admission, or several other factors was found. The sensitivityof GGT (     

Problems of Sensing Tachyarrhythmias by an Antitachycardia Pacemaker (Symbios 7008)

Atrial burst pacing is an effective method of terminating supraventricular tachycardia. In the patient presented in this report, a Symbios 7008 pacemaker (Medtronic Inc., Minneapolis, MN, USA) was implanted for two reasons: (1) severe AV conduction defect (AH, 230 msec; HV, 150 msec) and bifascicular block following anterior myocardial infarction; and (2) paroxysmal atrial flutter. The conduction defect ruled out programming other than atrial burst in DDD mode. Activation of burst pacing required appropriate programming of the "tachycardia detection window" on the basis of the cycle length of the flutter waves. In the case reviewed, episodes of atrial flutter with variable cycle lengths of 230 to 280 msec necessitated reprogramming of the AV interval, the refractory period, and the upper rate interval. The use of an antitachycardia device in automatic mode may be limited by variations in tachycardia cycle length.     

Trypanosoma brucei infection in nude mice: B lymphocyte function is suppressed in the absence of T lymphocytes

B lymphocyte function was assessed in outbred nude mice and nu/+controls infected with Trypanosoma brucei brucei. On day 10 of the infection in outbred nu/nu mice in which the initial wave of parasites was strongly controlled, B cell function was unaltered on enhanced compared with uninfected animals or infected nu/+. In other nu/nu mice unable to control the initial parasitaemia, thymidine incorporation and Ig secretion by spleen cells were increased on day 10 and their response to lipopolysaccharide in vitro negated. By day 15 however, even the spleen cells of infected nu/nu which controlled the initial wave of parasites were proliferating and secreting Ig on removal from the mice and they were unable to respond to LPS in vitro. These experiments confirm results of a previous study of B cell function in T cell-depleted mice (Askonas et al. 1979). T. b. brucei infection of mice causes both enhanced Ig production and suppression of the ability of B cells to respond to mitogen even in the absence of T cells, but the presence of T cells may accelerate the changes which occur in B lymphocytes following this infection.     

Project Megapoles: Promoting better health for socially disadvantaged groups across Europe

A new public health network is looking at ways of achievingbetter health and reducing differences in health between Europe'scapital cities. A report from the Socially Disadvantaged Groupssub-network of Megapoles.     

Computerised version of the Chou and Fasman protein secondary structure predictive method

A DEC-SYSTEM 10 FORTRAN computer program to carry out secondary structure prediction of proteins, according to the algorithm of Chou & Fasman (1, 2), is described. Program results are compared with predictions made by Chou & Fasman.