Neonatal fat embolism and agglutination of intralipid

Pulmonary fat embolism in a preterm infant receiving Intralipid intravenously is described. Serum obtained at the time of clinical deterioration agglutinated Intralipid. This coincided with the onset of septicaemia and with a raised serum C reactive protein concentration. Subsequent clinical improvement was associated with reduction in the C reactive protein concentration and nonagglutination of Intralipid.     

The use and safety of Ibuprofen in the hemophiliac

After demonstrating initial safety of Ibuprofen administered to hemophiliacs, a 16-wk double-blind individual crossover trial was designed to test the safety and, to a more limited extent, the efficacy of 1600 mg of Ibuprofen or placebo given daily to 20 hemophiliacs with hemophiliac arthropathy. The trial was completed with no evidence of increased frequency or severity of hemophiliac bleeding episodes or clinical or laboratory evidence of bleeding secondary to Ibuprofen. There were five treatment failures, none associated with hemorrhage or lack of compliance. A benefit was obtained in reduction of early morning stiffness and pain. Ibuprofen should be considered as a safe and potentially beneficial antiinflammatory agent in the treatment of carefully monitored hemophiliacs eligible for such therapy.     

Percutaneous antegrade ureteric stent removal using a rigid alligator forceps

To evaluate the safety and efficacy of percutaneous antegrade ureteric stent removal using a rigid alligator forceps. Twenty patients were included in our study. Indications for ureteric stent insertion included stone disease (n = 7), malignancy (n = 8) and transplant anastomotic strictures (n = 5). Stent retrieval was carried out for proximal stent placement/migration in seven patients and encrustation in the remaining 13. Twenty‐two stents were successfully retrieved in 20 patients. There was one technical failure (5%). There were no major complications. We had four minor complications, which included nephrostomy site pain (n = 2), periprocedural sepsis (n = 1) and a small urinoma (n = 1). All patients settled with conservative management. Percutaneous radiologically guided antegrade ureteric stent removal with an alligator forceps is safe and effective, particularly when initial surgical removal has failed.     

Cost-effectiveness analysis using data from multinational trials: the use of bivariate hierarchical modeling.

Health care cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) often uses individual patient data (IPD) from multinational randomized controlled trials. Although designed to account for between-patient sampling variability in the clinical and economic data, standard analytical approaches to CEA ignore the presence of between-location variability in the study results. This is a restrictive limitation given that countries often differ in factors that could affect the results of CEAs, such as the availability of health care resources, their unit costs, clinical practice, and patient case mix. The authors advocate the use of Bayesian bivariate hierarchical modeling to analyze multinational cost-effectiveness data. This analytical framework explicitly recognizes that patient-level costs and outcomes are nested within countries. Using real-life data, the authors illustrate how the proposed methods can be applied to obtain (a) more appropriate estimates of overall cost-effectiveness and associated measure of sampling uncertainty compared to standard CEA and (b) country-specific cost-effectiveness estimates that can be used to assess the between-location variability of the study results while controlling for differences in country-specific and patient-specific characteristics. It is demonstrated that results from standard CEA using IPD from multinational trials display a large degree of variability across the 17 countries included in the analysis, producing potentially misleading results. In contrast, "shrinkage estimates' obtained from the modeling approach proposed here facilitate the appropriate quantification of country-specific cost-effectiveness estimates while weighting the results based on the level of information available within each country. The authors suggest that the methods presented here represent a general framework for the analysis of economic data collected from different locations.     

Application of Color Transformation Techniques in Pediatric Spinal Cord MR Images: Typically Developing and Spinal Cord Injury Population

The purpose of this study was to evaluate an improved and reliable visualization method for pediatric spinal cord MR images in healthy subjects and patients with spinal cord injury (SCI). A total of 15 pediatric volunteers (10 healthy subjects and 5 subjects with cervical SCI) with a mean age of 11.41 years (range 8–16 years) were recruited and scanned using a 3.0T Siemens Verio MR scanner. T2-weighted axial images were acquired covering entire cervical spinal cord level C1 to C7. These gray-scale images were then converted to color images by using five different techniques including hue-saturation-value (HSV), rainbow, red-green-blue (RGB), and two enhanced RGB techniques using automated contrast stretching and intensity inhomogeneity correction. Performance of these techniques was scored visually by two neuroradiologists within three selected cervical spinal cord intervertebral disk levels (C2-C3, C4-C5, and C6-C7) and quantified using signal to noise ratio (SNR) and contrast to noise ratio (CNR). Qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the color images shows consistent improvement across all the healthy and SCI subjects over conventional gray-scale T2-weighted gradient echo (GRE) images. Inter-observer reliability test showed moderate to strong intra-class correlation (ICC) coefficients in the proposed techniques (ICC?>?0.73). The results suggest that the color images could be used for quantification and enhanced visualization of the spinal cord structures in addition to the conventional gray-scale images. This would immensely help towards improved delineation of the gray/white and CSF structures and further aid towards accurate manual or automatic drawings of region of interests (ROIs).     

Investigations using a novel monoclonal antibody to the glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored protein that carries Gregory, Holley, and Dombrock blood group antigens

BACKGROUND: The high-frequency Hy and Gya antigens have been shown to reside on the same protein. Gy(a-) Hy-negative red cells are also Do(a- b-). A mouse monoclonal antibody, 5B10, was produced with specificity related to the human Gregory, Holley, and Dombrock blood group antigens. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: The antibody reacted in direct hemagglutination assays, and its specificity was investigated by radioimmunoassay, inhibition assay, and Western blotting. RESULTS: The 5B10 antibody failed to bind to abnormal paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria red cells and human erythroleukemia cell line K562, but it was weakly reactive with HEL cells. Red cells, but not other circulating hematopoietic cells, express the 5B10 antigen. The 5B10 antibody had a specificity similar but not identical to that of Gya. Gy(a-) Hy-negative red cells reacted extremely weakly with 5B10 antibody, but Gy(a-) Hy-negative red cells treated with a variety of proteases bound 5B10 antibody strongly. This suggests that these cells express a variant form of the protein recognized by 5B10. CONCLUSION: Identification of a monoclonal antibody to this glycosylphosphatidylinositol-linked protein opens a new avenue for investigation of the biochemistry, genetics, and function of the glycosylphosphatidylinositol-linked protein that bears the Gya, Hy, and Do antigens.     

Sepsis associated with transfusion of red cells contaminated with Yersinia enterocolitica

Between April 1987 and May 1989, the Centers for Disease Control investigated seven cases of transfusion-associated Yersinia enterocolitica sepsis; four were caused by organisms of serotype O:3, and one each was caused by organisms of serotype O:1,2,3; O:5,27; and O:20. All seven recipients developed septic shock after receiving units of red cells (RBCs) contaminated with Y. enterocolitica; five recipients died. The cases occurred in seven states and were unrelated. There was no evidence for contamination of the RBC units during processing. Six of the seven donors had serologic evidence of recent Y. enterocolitica infection, and it is hypothesized that these donors had asymptomatic bacteremia when they donated the implicated blood. Four of the seven donors reported gastrointestinal illness in the 4 weeks before blood donation, and one donor became ill on the day he donated blood. Y. enterocolitica grows well at 4 degrees C and in the presence of dextrose and iron. If blood is contaminated at the time of collection, storage of the RBCs at 4 degrees C provides an ideal environment for bacterial growth and endotoxin production. These cases demonstrate the need for careful evaluation of patients with transfusion reactions for possible sepsis and suggest a need to screen prospective blood donors for mild gastrointestinal illness, including those illnesses not requiring physician evaluation or medication.