Knee injuries: high-resolution MR imaging

Recent technologic advances have made high-resolution magnetic resonance (MR) imaging of the knee a clinical reality. Ten healthy volunteers and 30 patients with suspected knee injuries were imaged using receive-only surface coils and two-dimensional multisection or three-dimensional selective acquisition techniques. Arthroscopic and/or surgical correlation was available in 15 patients. Tears of the cruciate ligament, medial collateral ligament, and meniscus are illustrated. Nonorthogonal views of the anterior cruciate ligament are useful for demonstrating both femoral and tibial attachments in the same section. The posterior cruciate ligament is usually well seen on sagittal views. T2-weighted images are helpful for demonstrating collateral ligament tears and meniscal tears when joint effusion is present. Thin sections (1-5 mm) are necessary to define many meniscal and cruciate tears. High-resolution, thin-section MR imaging can be used to diagnose soft-tissue injuries of the knee and has the potential to become a major imaging method in the evaluation of knee injuries.     

Port-Site Pyoderma Gangrenosum – A Rare Complication of Surgical Trauma

We report a case of pyoderma gangrenosum occurring at the site of a laparoscopic port insertion following laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair.     

Genetic factors affecting the consistency and magnitude of changes in plasma cholesterol in response to dietary challenge

We examined the role of common genetic variation in determining the consistency and magnitude of change in plasma total cholesterol (TC) levels in response to two separate changes from a high-saturated (SFA) to a low-saturated/high-polyunsaturated-fat (PUFA) diet, in a group of free-living healthy men and women. Consistent responders were defined as those whose mean difference in the change in TC was within one SD of the mean for all participants, and the remainder were defined as variable responders. DNA was obtained from 55 individuals and genotype determined at the apolipoprotein (apo) B locus (signal peptide, SP), apoCIII (C1100-T) and lipoprotein lipase (LPL) gene loci (HindIII). In the 38 consistent responders, the apoBSP24 allele was significantly more common than in the 17 individuals with a variable response (0.29 vs. 0.12; p < 0.05). No other polymorphism showed a significant frequency difference between groups. In the group as a whole, the correlation between the change in TC level in response to the first and second dietary change was 0.28 (p = 0.05), but those with one or more apoB SP24 alleles and those with the apoCIII genotype CC had a significantly higher correlation than those with other genotypes (0.46 (p = 0.05) vs. 0.12 (NS) and 0.31 (p = 0.05) vs. 0.02 (NS), respectively). In the group as a whole, mean response left TC 10% higher on the SFA than on the PUFA diet, and neither apoB nor apoCIII genotypes affected the magnitude of this response. However, individuals with the LPL HindIII genotype H+ H+ had a significantly smaller change in mean TC in response to diet than those with one or more H- allele (9.3% vs. 14.4%; p = 0.03). Thus variation at the apoB and apoCIII loci affects the consistency of response to change in dietary fat content, while variation at the LPL gene locus affects magnitude of response.      

延边地区汉族和朝鲜族居民脂肪分布与代谢异常的关系

目的:了解延边地区朝鲜族和汉族居民的脂肪分布特征及其与血压、血脂及血糖的关系。方法:于2006-08-8/17在延边地区九龙和翁声社区随机选择40～60岁朝鲜族和汉族常住居民2378名进行内脏脂肪率和体脂肪率以及血压、血脂、血糖等生化指标的检测。调查以健康体检形式进行,①内脏脂肪和体脂肪率测定采用日本TANITA株式会社生产的BC-600型体成分计测定,并且按其判定标准确定超过标准者[内脏脂肪率≥15%(男)、≥10%(女),体脂肪率(40～59岁)≥23%(男)、≥36%(女),体脂肪率(≥60岁)≥25%(男)、≥37%(女)]。②取清晨空腹(禁食12h)静脉血,采用日立-7600-010全自动生化分析仪测量血清总胆固醇、三酰甘油、高密度脂蛋白胆固醇、空腹血糖等指标。③高血压的诊断标准:收缩压≥140mmHg(1mmHg=0.133kPa)及或舒张压≥90mmHg。④血脂异常的诊断标准:总胆固醇≥5.72mmol/L,三酰甘油≥1.7mmol/L,高密度脂蛋白胆固醇<0.90mmol/L(男)、<1.0mmol/L(女)。⑤高血糖的诊断标准:空腹血糖≥6.1mmol/L。结果:①汉族男性的内脏脂肪率和体脂肪率均值分别为(10.51±3.66)%和(22.70±4.85)%,朝鲜族男性分别为(9.16±3.81)%和(20.28±5.02)%,汉族均高于朝鲜族(P<0.01);汉族女性的内脏脂肪率和体脂肪率分别为(6.22±2.27)%和(35.31±5.65)%,朝鲜族女性分别为(5.88±2.19)%和(34.00±5.72)%,汉族均高于朝鲜族(P<0.01)。②汉族男性的内脏脂肪率和体脂肪率超标率分别为12.1%和45.8%,朝鲜族男性分别为7.8%和28.6%,汉族均高于朝鲜族(P<0.05);汉族女性的内脏脂肪率和体脂肪率超标率分别为6.7%和47.9%,朝鲜族女性分别为3.8%和37.3%,汉族均高于朝鲜族(P<0.05)。③Logistic逐步回归分析结果表明,内脏脂肪率与民族、性别、年龄、高血压、高三酰甘油血症和高血糖有密切关系;体脂肪率与民族、性别、高血压、高三酰甘油血症、低高密度脂蛋白血症和高血糖有密切的关系。结论:①延边地区汉族居民内脏脂肪率和体脂肪率平均水平及其超标率明显高于朝鲜族。②内脏脂肪率和体脂肪率均与民族、性别、年龄(体脂肪率除外)、高血压、高三酰甘油血症和高血糖相关。     

Western diet consumption and cognitive impairment: links to hippocampal dysfunction and obesity

Intake of saturated fats and simple carbohydrates, two of the primary components of a modern Western diet, is linked with the development of obesity and Alzheimer's Disease. The present paper summarizes research showing that Western diet intake is associated with cognitive impairment, with a specific emphasis on learning and memory functions that are dependent on the integrity of the hippocampus. The paper then considers evidence that saturated fat and simple carbohydrate intake is correlated with neurobiological changes in the hippocampus that may be related to the ability of these dietary components to impair cognitive function. Finally, a model is described proposing that Western diet consumption contributes to the development of excessive food intake and obesity, in part, by interfering with a type of hippocampal-dependent memory inhibition that is critical in the ability of animals to refrain from responding to environmental cues associated with food, and ultimately from consuming energy intake in excess of that driven solely by caloric need.     

Penetrating Missile Injuries During the Iraqi Insurgency

INTRODUCTION

Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the conflict has evolved from asymmetric warfare to a counter-insurgency operation. This study investigates the pattern of wounding and types of injuries seen in casualties of hostile action presenting to a British military field hospital during the present conflict.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Data were prospectively collected on 100 consecutive patients either injured or killed from hostile action from January 2006 who presented to the sole coalition field hospital in southern Iraq.

RESULTS

Eighty-two casualties presented with penetrating missile injuries from hostile action. Three subsequently died of wounds (3.7%). Forty-six (56.1%) casualties had their initial surgery performed by British military surgeons. Twenty casualties (24.4%) sustained gunshot wounds, 62 (75.6%) suffered injuries from fragmentation weapons. These 82 casualties were injured in 55 incidents (mean, 1.49 casualties; range 1–6 casualties) and sustained a total 236 wounds (mean, 2.88 wounds) affecting a mean 2.4 body regions per patient. Improvised explosive devices were responsible for a mean 2.31 casualties (range, 1–4 casualties) per incident.

CONCLUSIONS

The current insurgency in Iraq illustrates the likely evolution of modern, low-intensity, urban conflict. Improvised explosive devices employed against both military and civilian targets have become a major cause of injury. With the current global threat from terrorist bombings, both military and civilian surgeons should be aware of the spectrum and emergent management of the injuries caused by these weapons.     

Pharmacogenetics of antipsychotic response in the CATIE trial: a candidate gene analysis

The Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness (CATIE) Phase 1 Schizophrenia trial compared the effectiveness of one typical and four atypical antipsychotic medications. Although trials such as CATIE present important opportunities for pharmacogenetics research, the very richness of the clinical data presents challenges for statistical interpretation, and in particular the risk that data mining will lead to false-positive discoveries. For this reason, it is both misleading and unhelpful to perpetuate the current practice of reporting association results for these trials one gene at a time, ignoring the fact that multiple gene-by-phenotype tests are being carried out on the same data set. On the other hand, suggestive associations in such trials may lead to new hypotheses that can be tested through both replication efforts and biological experimentation. The appropriate handling of these forms of data therefore requires dissemination of association statistics without undue emphasis on select findings. Here we attempt to illustrate this approach by presenting association statistics for 2769 polymorphisms in 118 candidate genes evaluated for 21 pharmacogenetic phenotypes. On current evidence it is impossible to know which of these associations may be real, although in total they form a valuable resource that is immediately available to the scientific community.     

Contributions of the hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex to energy and body weight regulation

The effects of selective ibotenate lesions of the complete hippocampus (CHip), the hippocampal ventral pole (VP), or the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in male rats were assessed on several measures related to energy regulation (i.e., body weight gain, food intake, body adiposity, metabolic activity, general behavioral activity, conditioned appetitive responding). The testing conditions were designed to minimize the nonspecific debilitating effects of these surgeries on intake and body weight. Rats with CHip and VP lesions exhibited significantly greater weight gain and food intake compared with controls. Furthermore, CHip-lesioned rats, but not rats with VP lesions, showed elevated metabolic activity, general activity in the dark phase of the light-dark cycle, and greater conditioned appetitive behavior, compared with control rats without these brain lesions. In contrast, rats with mPFC lesions were not different from controls on any of these measures. These results indicate that hippocampal damage interferes with energy and body weight regulation, perhaps by disrupting higher-order learning and memory processes that contribute to the control of appetitive and consummatory behavior.