Achievement of behavioral efficacy and improved potency in new heterocyclic analogs of benzofuran H3 antagonists

Inflammation Research - .     

Interleaved echo planar flow quantitation

A method is presented for rapid blood flow quantitation. It combines multiple shot echo planar imaging principles with phase contrast velocity encoding gradients. Preliminary validation experiments performed on a flow phantom indicate a good correlation with actual flow values. Measurements of pulsatile flow in the ascending and descending aorta, acquired in just 4 s₁ with a temporal resolution of 50 ms, are demonstrated.     

To decay is system: the challenges of keeping a health information system alive

Health information system (HIS) architecture and socio-technical approaches for system deployment have been topics of systematic research for decades. Sustainable operation in gradually changing environments, however, has not yet received sufficient attention. Even HIS that have gone life to the satisfaction of their developers and end-users may degrade gracefully or fail catastrophically if not continuously and thoroughly kept in sync with their environment. Critical environmental changes may owe their origins to the complexity of health care and its delivery. Seemingly minor environmental changes can result in significant failures on the part of the information system and may adversely affect the quality of health care delivered. Such minor degradation or near failure may go unnoticed for a while and then hit unexpectedly. Five origins of decay will be analyzed. Methods of systematic observation and containment of such decaying processes will tentatively be presented. Some origins of system decay exist in the immediate hospital or regional setting of usage. Indicators to identify processes of decay will be suggested and methods to preemptively reduce the risk of decay will be presented. Other origins span national health care systems or beyond. Not all such risks can hence be controlled locally. Software Oversight Committees may be an instrument to monitor those risks that cannot be controlled through routine local management.     

Gray matter-changes and correlates of disease severity in schizophrenia: a statistical parametric mapping study

Voxel-based morphometry has recently been used successfully to detect gray matter volume reductions in schizophrenic patients. The aim of the present study was to confirm the findings on gray-matter changes and to complement these by applying the methodology to CSF-differences. Also, we wanted to determine whether a correlation exists between a clinically defined parameter of disease severity and brain morphology in schizophrenic patients. We investigated 48 schizophrenic patients and compared them with 48 strictly age- and sex-matched controls. High-resolution whole-brain MR-images were segmented and analyzed using SPM99. In a further analysis, the covariate effect of the global assessment of functioning-score (GAF) was calculated. Main findings were (i) left-dominant frontal, temporal, and insular GM-reductions and (ii) GM-increases in schizophrenic patients in the right basal ganglia and bilaterally in the superior cerebellum; (iii) CSF-space increases in patients complementary to some GM-reductions; (iv) a correlation between the GAF-score and local GM-volume in the left inferior frontal and inferior parietal lobe of schizophrenic patients. This study confirms and extends some earlier findings on GM-reduction and detected distinct GM-increases in schizophrenic patients. These changes were corroborated by complementary CSF-increases. Most importantly, a correlation could be established between two particular gray matter-regions and the overall disease severity, with more severely ill patients displaying a local GM-deficit. These findings may be of potentially large importance for both the future interpretation and design of neuroimaging studies in schizophrenia and the further elucidation of possible pathophysiological processes occurring in this disease.     

Expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase in muscle flaps treated with ischemic postconditioning

Background/Objective

Preconditioning has been considered promising for the treatment of ischemic flaps. In this study, the therapeutic effect of postconditioning was compared with that of preconditioning during ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury, and a role of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) in postconditioning treatment was also explored.

Methods

Sixty rats were randomly divided into four groups with 15 rats in each group. Ischemic injury was induced in a rat’s gracilis muscle flap model. Preconditioning and postconditioning were performed respectively on the flaps in the pre-con group and the post-con group. No treatment was given to the flaps in the control group, and flaps without I/R injury were used as a sham control. Muscle viability ratio, histology, and gene expression of iNOS were examined at different time intervals (3, 12, and 18 h).

Results

A significantly higher survival ratio was observed in both the pre-con group (78.98 ± 3.39, 62.74 ± 3.7, and 54.42 ± 4.45 %) and the post-con group (77.42 ± 4.14, 59.74 ± 6.67, and 49.52 ± 4.13 %) than the control group (45.22 ± 3.69, 42.44 ± 3.76, and 33.2 ± 3.29 %) at 3, 12, and 18 h postoperatively (P < 0.05). There was no statistical difference between the pre-con group and the post-con group (P > 0.05). Histological examination showed delayed and attenuated tissue damage in both the pre-con group and the post-con group when compared to that of the control group. A higher expression of iNOS was observed in both the pre-con group and the post-con group than the control group and the sham group (P < 0.05).

Conclusions

Significant improvement of flap survival could be achieved by both preconditioning and postconditioning treatments; however, better protection could be provided by preconditioning. The higher expression of iNOS may play an important role in the therapeutic effect of postconditioning during I/R injury.     

Monoclonal cryoglobulin of IgG (λ) type interacting with transferrin

Summary We report on a 49 year old patient with myeloma who suffered from serious disturbance of the blood circulation in both legs and who had a fatal outcome. Histologically ubiquitous thrombosis of the small arteries and veins of the skin and muscles was found. The formation of these thrombi is probably caused by the intravascular precipitation of a fragment of a monoclonal cryoglobulin of the IgG () type. The peculiarity of this cryoglobulin was its occurrence in vitro in a complex with transferrin and fibrinogen. The interaction between transferrin and paraprotein was verified by chromatography of the serum of this patient on DEAE Sephadex A-50 ion exchanger. The spontaneous precipitation of the cryoglobulin in EDTA plasma was observed immediately after the venipuncture even if the sample was kept at 37°C whereas in the serum a faint precipitate formed only after a period of 48 h storage at 4°C. This precipitate would have been overlooked under routine conditions. It seems that in vitro the interaction between transferrin and paraprotein fragment initiates the formation of the complex which then is completed by fibrinogen in the presence of EDTA.Supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Bonn-Bad Godesberg (We 445)     

Fingertip amputations: distal or advancement flaps

Fingertip amputations treated with conventional flaps gave consistently good coverage, but the recovery of sensibility was superior in advancement flaps. Residual pain, however, was less frequent in distal flaps. Work incapacity averaged between 6 and 8 weeks.     

H-Kettenkrankheit: Humorale und celluläre Befunde bei sechs Fällen vom μ-Kettentyp

Clinical and chemical findings in 6 patients with mu-chain disease are reported. In all of these patients a lymphoproliferative disease was observed which by its symptoms resembled CLL. This similarity was underlined by the finding of an impaired response of PBL of the patients to mitogens as PHA, PWM, and Con A. A substantial result of our studies lies in the fact that the presence of mu-chains in the serum does not correlate with a clinically defined entity. Moreover, mu-chains have been observed in a case of benign lymphadenopathy. In one case a good remission of 4 years duration could be induced by the application of cytostatic agents.