Changing patterns of hospitalization in eating disorder patients.

OBJECTIVE: This study investigated the changing patterns of hospitalization of eating disorder patients over the past 15 years. METHOD: The records of 1,185 eating disorder patients between 1984 and 1998 were examined on several variables. RESULTS: Over the 15 years, the number of first admissions increased from 20 to 182. There was a concomitant decrease in length of stay from 149.5 days in 1984 to 23.7 days in 1998. Readmissions increased markedly from 0% during the first year to 27% of total admissions in 1998. The discharge weight of anorectic patients significantly decreased from a body mass index (BMI) of 19.3 in 1984 to 17.7 in 1998. These changes were particularly salient in the past 3 years, concurrent with a dramatic rise in managed care cases. CONCLUSIONS: Over the past 15 years, eating disorder hospital treatment has metamorphozed from long-term treatment of a disorder to stabilization of acute episodes. For some patients, this change has been deleterious and not cost effective.     

Bombesin-like peptide mediates lung injury in a baboon model of bronchopulmonary dysplasia.

The etiology of bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), a chronic lung disease of infants surviving respiratory distress syndrome, remains fundamentally enigmatic. BPD is decreasing in severity but continues to be a major problem in pediatric medicine, being especially prevalent among very premature infants. Increased numbers of pulmonary neuroendocrine cells containing bombesin-like peptide (BLP) have been reported to occur in human infants with BPD. We tested the hypothesis that BLP mediates BPD using the hyperoxic baboon model. Urine BLP levels increased soon after birth only in 100% O2-treated 140-d animals which developed BPD, correlating closely with severity of subsequent chronic lung disease. Similar elevations in urine BLP were observed in the 125-d baboon "interrupted gestation" model of BPD. Postnatal administration of anti-BLP antibody attenuated clinical and pathological evidence of chronic lung disease in the hyperoxic baboon model. Urine BLP could be a biological predictor of infants at risk for BPD, and blocking BLP postnatally could be useful for BPD prevention.     

Hapten-specific T cell responses to 4-hydroxy-3-nitrophenyl acetyl. VIII. Suppressor cell pathways in cutaneous sensitivity responses

In the current study, we examine the mechanism of suppression of cutaneous sensitivity (CS) responses to 4-hydroxy-3-nitrophenyl acetyl succinimide ester. Intravenous administration of haptenated syngeneic spleen cells induces a state of hapten-specific tolerance involving I-J bearing suppressor T cells that function at either the induction phase or the effector phase of the CS response. The effective phase suppressor cells (Tse) are genetically restricted by both Igh and H-2 region genes. However, a third cell population is also required in he immune lymphocyte population for immune suppression. This third cell population, termed Ts3, is an I-J+, cyclophosphamide-sensitive T cell, as shown by reconstitution experiments. Further, the Tse-Ts3 interaction is restricted by genes in he H-2 and Igh gene complexes. The results are discussed with respect to the pathway of cellular interactions leading to immuno suppression.     

Multiple comparisons model-based clustering and ternary pattern tree numerical display of gene response to treatment: procedure and application to the preclinical evaluation of chemopreventive agents

Microarray technology has greatly aided the identification of genes that are expressed differentially. Statistical analysis of such data by multiple comparisons procedures has been slow to develop, in part, because methods to cluster the results of such comparisons in biologically meaningful ways have not been available. We isolated and analyzed, by Northern blot and GeneChip, replicate liver RNA samples (n = 4/group) from rats fed with control diet or diet containing one of three chemopreventive compounds, selected because their pharmacological activities, including RNA expression response, are relatively well understood. We report on a classification tree, based on the results of nonparametric multiple comparisons, which results in the bipolar hierarchical clustering of genes in relation to their response to treatment. In addition to identifying treatment-responsive genes, application of this procedure to our test study identified the known pharmacological relationships among the treatment groups without supervision. Also, small treatment-specific subsets of genes were identified that may be indicative of additional pharmacophores present in the test compounds.