Interleukin-5 is at 5q31 and is deleted in the 5q- syndrome

Human interleukin-5 (IL-5) is a selective eosinophilopoietic and eosinophil-activating growth hormone. By in situ hybridization this gene is mapped to chromosome 5q23.3 to 5q32. It is shown to be deleted in two patients with the 5q-syndrome and in one patient previously diagnosed with myelodysplasia whose condition had progressed to acute myeloblastic leukemia. The clustering of other genes involved in hematopoiesis (IL-3, granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor, feline sarcoma viral oncogene homolog, colony-stimulating factor 1) to the same region as IL-5 suggests a nonrandom localization and raises interesting questions concerning the evolution and regulation of these genes.     

Infant Flow Driver or single prong nasal continuous positive airway pressure: short-term physiological effects

The effectiveness of single prong nasal continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) was compared with the Infant Flow Driver (IFD) in a crossover study in 20 neonates treated with ≤ 30% oxygen by nasal CPAP. They were randomized to the device used at the start of the study. Each infant was studied for four consecutive 2-h periods alternating between single prong nasal CPAP and the IFD. The FiO² from the IFD read 0.02 higher than the same setting on the ventilators used for single prong nasal CPAP. The IFD improved the mean (95% CI) of theFiO₂by 0.05 (0.02–0.08), p = 0:008. Taking into account the systematic error in the FiO² between the devices the real mean improvement in FiO₂ produced by the IFD was 0.03 (-0.005 to 0.06), p = 0:09. There were no significant differences in respiratory rate, heart rate, blood pressure or comfort score of infants during periods of single nasal prong CPAP compared with periods on the IFD.