Picture of the Month

A 2?year-old boy had the onset of pain and swelling of his penis during the past 3 days. The swelling and pain increased significantly within the past 24 hours. The child's penis is shown in the Figure. DENOUEMENT AND DISCUSSION PARAPHIMOSIS Paraphimosis is an urologic emergency that results when the foreskin is retracted away from the glans penis and cannot be reduced to its former position. The opening in the prepuce, when forcibly retracted beyond the coronal sulcus, becomes a constricting ring that cannot be reduced. The constricting ring created causes a tension greater than the lymphatic pressure and results in edema of the prepuce, the penile shaft, and the glans penis distal to the incarcerated foreskin.1,2As lymphatic drainage is impaired and tissue swelling increases, reduction of the foreskin becomes more difficult. Pain occurs as a result of swelling, and, eventually, as a result of vascular compromise. If.     

Mitochondrial DNA variability detected in a single wheat regenerant involves a rare recombination event across a short repeat

The mitochondrial genome of the selfed progeny of a plant regenerated from long-term somatic tissue culture displays specific structural rearrangements characterized by the appearance of novel restriction fragments. A mitochondrial DNA library was constructed from this selfed progeny in the SalI site of cosmid pHC79 and the novel fragments were subsequently studied. They were shown to arise from reciprocal recombination events involving DNA sequences present in the parental plant. The regions of recombination were sequenced and the nucleotide sequences were aligned with those of the presumptive parental fragments. We characterized an imperfect short repeated DNA sequence, 242 bp long, within which a 7-bb DNA repeat could act as a region of recombination. The use of PCR technology allowed us to show that these fragments were present in both parental plants and tissue cultures as low-abundance sequence arrangements.     

Identification of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism with Biological Parameters

The prevalence and incidence of heavy alcohol consumption are major problems which have been increasing in many countries in recent years. It is crucial for physicians to consistently identify early drinking problems as well as the various end disease states in order to minimize suffering and maximize recovery. This paper reviews the evolutionary development of clinical tools for detection of alcohol abuse. The focus is primarily on clinical/biochemical indicators of alcohol abuse, emphasizing but not limited to changes in hematological characteristics, liver enzyme activity, lipids, immune function factors, hormones, neurological factors, and some physically based tests. Use of test combinations and sophisticated statistical analysis of pattern changes in test batteries evidence increased diagnostic efficiency.     

Ethanol and chronic diazepam interactions on conflict behavior in rats

Four groups of five rats each received training on the Geller-Seifter procedure and then received 0.5, 1.0 or 2.0 mg/kg diazepam (DZ) or vehicle, respectively, 15 min prior to the behavior sessions for 14 days. On Day 14 of DZ treatment rats also were administered 2.0 g/kg of ethanol (EtOH) 30 min prior to testing. Significant dose-related decreases in lever pressing occurred between groups over the 13 days of DZ treatment during the pre- and posttone periods. However, a significant effect attributable to days occurred only in the pretone period. During the tone period, the dose-related effects were greater but the variability also increased and specific contrasts between individual means were not significant. The largest increases in lever pressing associated with an anxiolytic effect occurred with 1.0 mg/kg of DZ at Day 6. On Day 14, all animals received 2.0 g/kg of EtOH and their performance was compared to performance on Day 13. During the pre- and posttone periods, the EtOH resulted in significantly less lever pressing in the control, 0.5 and 2.0 mg/kg DZ groups, indicating a sedative effect. Rats treated with 1.0 mg/kg of DZ did not exhibit this EtOH reduction in lever pressing. During the tone or conflict period, a significant dose-related increase in lever pressing due to the EtOH was observed. The increase in the control group was not significant. During repeated exposure to DZ there was a small but significant decrease in number of reinforcements which was enhanced by the EtOH at the 0.5 and 2.0 mg/kg DZ doses but not at 1.0 mg/kg DZ.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Concentration of serum IGD in monoclonal gammopathies

Serum immunoglobulin levels IgG, IgA, IgM were assayed by laser-nephelometry and IgD by a liquid phase radio-immunoassay in 133 patients with monoclonal gammopathy. Our result show that IgD concentration decrease in parallel with polyclonal immunoglobulin levels. We observe a decrease of IgD level, more pronounced in malignant gammopathy in which the polyclonal immunoglobulin levels are usually low.     

Acute actions of insulin-like growth factor II on glucose metabolism in adult rats

Summary The metabolic potency of recombinant human insulin-like growth factor II was studied in anaesthetized adult rats by obtaining dose-response curves for the hypoglycaemic action and for the stimulation of glucose metabolism during euglycaemic clamping. Compared to insulin, about 50 times higher doses of insulin-like growth factor II were required to result in identical in vivo responses, with half-maximally effective serum concentrations for the stimulation of glucose disposal during clamp studies of about 0.8 and 50 pmol/ml, respectively. A similar difference in potency was observed for the dose-dependent stimulatory actions on glucose metabolism in individual target tissues. Half-maximally effective serum concentrations in the range of 0.8 to 3.0 pmol/ml for insulin and of 40 to 70 pmol/ml for insulin-like growth factor II were seen to be required for 2-deoxyglucose uptake, glycogen formation in skeletal muscle and lipogenesis in epididymal fat. Maximal responses were identical with both peptides. These data suggest that in vivo acute metabolic actions of insulin-like growth factor II on carbohydrate metabolism occurred through insulin receptors.