Permanent Transvenous Atrial Pacing After Heart Surgery

Permanent transvenous atrial "J" leads were successfully implanted in 10 patients whose atrial appendages had been previously amputated during heart surgery. Early and late lead performance was satisfactory.     

Low dose azaribine in the treatment of psoriasis

Thirteen patients with severe psoriasis were treated with low dose azaribine (125 mg/kg/day) for 8-week periods. Two patients with generalized pustular psoriasis and four patients with psoriatic arthritis had a good to excellent response. Severe neurotoxicity occurred in four patients, requiring lowering of the dose in three and discontinuance of the drug in one patient. Because of these results, azaribine at 125 mg/kg/day cannot be recommended for plaque-type psoriasis, though it is very effective against generahzed pustular psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. Of the eleven patients with plaque psoriasis, seven had a good or excellent response initially but subsequently relapsed while on therapy; the other four patients failed to respond to the medication.     

CONSTANT ABSOLUTE ETHANOL INTAKE BY SARDINIAN ALCOHOL-PREFERRING RATS INDEPENDENT OF ETHANOL CONCENTRATIONS

The present study was designed to evaluate ethanol drinkingbehaviour in Sardinian alcohol-preferring (sP) and Sardinianalcohol-non-preferring (sNP) rats in the presence of differentethanol concentrations. Ethanol intake was tested under thetwo-bottle, free-choice regimen and continuous access schedule.Ethanol-naive sP and sNP rats were initially given ethanol solutionat the standard, constant concentration of 10% (v/v) for 8 consecutivedays (Phase 1). As expected, daily ethanol intake in sP ratsrose from 4 to {small tilde}l6g/kg; in contrast sNP rats consumed<10g/kg/day ethanol. Subsequently, an ascending series ofethanol concentrations, ranging from 3 to 60% (v/v), was presentedto sP and sNP rats over a 28-day period (Phase 2). At concentrationsvarying from 7 to 30%, sP rats consumed constant amounts ofabsolute ethanol per kg of body weight ({small tilde}6.0 g/kg/day).Daily ethanol intake in sNP rats remained constantly lower than1.0 g/kg, irrespective of the ethanol concentration. Data fromPhase 2 demonstrate the ability of sP rats to precisely adjustdaily ethanol intake and support the hypothesis that voluntaryethanol drinking in sP rats is sustained by specific pharmacologicaleffects of ethanol.