Rules for differentiating symptoms and signs of the heart-qi deficiency syndrome

344 cases of Heart-Qi Deficiency Syndrome (HQDS) including 19 Kinds of disease were observed to explore the rule of differentiation of symptoms and signs for HQDS. The results showed that the common symptoms of HQDS were weakness, shortness of breath, and palpitation, etc. According to with or without complicated cardiovascular diseases, the patients were divided into two groups: group A with cardiovascular diseases, group B without that. In group A, the symptoms and signs of HQDS were the most frequent and early clinical manifestations, the associated symptoms and signs were blood stasis and attack of water-evil, etc. In group B, in whom often associated with nervous and emotional symptoms such as insomnia, dreamfulness, and amnesia, etc., which was due to the disturbance of emotional activities of heart. In order to avoid diagnostic confusion, the authors suggest that the HQDS patients with cardiovascular diseases would be diagnosed as HQDS; on the other hand, the HQDS patients without cardiovascular diseases would be diagnosed as disturbance of emotional activities of heart.     

Supraventricular tachycardia complicated by acute myocardial ischemia induced by atropine injection. Report of a clinical case]

The authors report a case of supraventricular tachyarrhythmia complicated by severe myocardial ischemia after IV injection of Atropine in a 37 years old woman, without known coronary artery disease. She had an ECG with sinusal bradycardia (40/min) and she was on the waiting list for to be submitted to surgical intervention on the lumbar spine.     

The effect of atherogenic infusions of the triglyceride-rich, lipid emulsion, Lipofundin-S, on the in vitro growth characteristics of rat aortic smooth muscle cells.

This study shows that arterial smooth muscle cells (SMC) isolated from rats receiving atherogenic doses of the lipid emulsion, Lipofundin-S, alter their in vitro growth properties. Compared to cells from control animals, SMC isolated from Lipofundin-S-infused rats show a reduction in both saturation density and response to increasing serum concentrations, without a change in the baseline proliferation. Also, SMC isolated from lipid-treated animals and grown for five days in the presence of 30, 150, or 300 pg/ml estradiol show a 30% increase in growth vs. cells from controls. Epinephrine at 1 microM stimulates growth in SMC from control rats, while causing no growth enhancement over five days in cells from lipid-infused animals. Thus, atherogenic infusions of Lipofundin-S into rats cause phenotypic changes in arterial SMC which can be passed to successive cell generations in vitro.     

Transitional mucosa at anastomosis. A cause of local tumor recurrence in patients with rectal cancer after anterior resection.

Transitional mucosa adjacent to colorectal cancers is essentially characterized by an excess of sialomucins at the expense of the normally predominant sulphomucins in epithelial cells lining the intestinal crypts which presents the early stage of oncogenic transformation of colorectal epithelium. The presence or absence of sialomucins at the resection margins was studied histochemically using the high iron diamine-alcian blue(HID-AB) stain in 64 rectal cancer patients in Dukes' B stage who underwent curative anterior resection. The correlation was revealed between the presence of sialomucins at the resection margins and subsequent development of local tumour recurrence. Fourteen of 27 patients (51.9%) with sialomucins predominant pattern at either resection margin developed local recurrence compared with 4 of 37 patients (10.8%) with sulphomucins predominant pattern (P less than 0.001). It is suggested that determination of the transitional mucosa around anastomosis in patients treated for the rectal carcinoma by anterior resection appears to identify those with a higher risk of local recurrence.     

Antibodies to glutamic acid decarboxylase discriminate major types of diabetes mellitus.

Insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) is marked by circulating antibodies to a 64,000-M(r) islet cell antigen identified as glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD). We describe a radioimmunoprecipitation assay with GAD isolated from pig brain. The sera tested were from 80 patients with IDDM including 26 with disease of recent onset and 54 with disease of longer duration (3-42 yr), 20 with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM), and 55 nondiabetic subjects. Conventional assays for islet cell cytoplasmic antibodies were performed concurrently. The level of antibody in serum was expressed in units based on percentage reactivity of a standard reference serum. The frequency of antibody to GAD in IDDM was 69% in short-duration cases and 59% in long-duration cases. The latter was substantially higher than the frequency of islet cell cytoplasmic antibody. Antibodies to GAD were elevated (means +/- 3 SD) in 5% NIDDM cases and in none of the nondiabetic subjects. A simple laboratory test with a defined autoantigen has substantial implications for population screening and early diagnosis of IDDM and for better understanding of its pathogenesis.