Bacteriophage treatment of suppurative skin infections

The study material comprised 31 patients with chronic suppurative infections of the skin caused by Pseudomonas, Staphylococcus, Klebsiella, Proteus and Escherichia. Within 2-16 weeks of the treatment, an improvement of the general state was observed as well as suppression of the local inflammation, purification of a wound from the suppurative and necrotic content, faster healing of the ulcers and fully negative results of the bacteriologic tests. In 16 cases, an outstanding therapeutic effect was obtained, in 7 cases marked improvement was reported and in 2 a transitory improvement was reported. In 7 patients the treatment was abandoned due to the lack of improvement (1 case) or development of side effects (6 cases). The results obtained provide evidence for the high effectiveness of phage therapy in the treatment of suppurative skin infections.     

Studies of RNA isolated from Piptoporus betulinus as interferon inducer.

Crude RNA isolated from Piptoporus betulinus and two fractions of it obtained after the chromatography contain single-stranded RNA. The crude RNA, but not its chromatographic fractions, are resistant to the pancreatic RNA-ase. The crude preparation of RNA from P. betulinus contains beside ribose, considerable amounts of glucose, galactose and mannose. The crude RNA from P. betulinus induces in the human fibroblasts interferon with specific activity of 400 units per mg of protein.     

Clinical variability in mucolipidosis III (pseudo-Hurler polydystrophy)

Mucolipidosis III (MLIII) is caused by a deficiency of UDP-N-acetylglucosamine:lysosomal enzyme N-acetylglucosamine 1-phosphotransferase (phosphotransferase) activity, an enzyme responsible for the formation of the recognition marker on most lysosomal enzymes. The consequences of this defect are impairment of many lysosomal catabolic processes. A deficiency of phosphotransferase activity causes two phenotypically different diseases: mucolipidosis II and a rare form, mucolipidosis III (pseudo-Hurler polydystrophy). The purpose of this article is to report three patients with ML III, presenting quite different clinical courses: Patient 1 is a 13-year-old girl in whom the only symptoms of ML III were joint stiffness of the hands. Patients 2 and 3 are sibs: a 5-year-old boy with a severe form of ML III and his 2-year-old sister, who is less affected than her brother at the same age. A comparison of biochemical results and the clinical picture of our patients with cases in the literature is presented.     

Intertrial responses of rats in two-way avoidance learning to visual and auditory stimuli.

Learning and performance of two-way avoidance were investigated in a total of 68 rats trained with either a visual (change in illumination to darkness or to light) or an auditory (white noise of 70 or 60 dB intensity) conditioned stimulus (CS). Experiment I showed that the darkness CS produce lower avoidance performance and a much higher rate of intertrial responses than either a auditory or a compound (visual plus auditory) CS. A monotonic within-session increase of avoidance performance and a similar, but less regular increase of intertrial responses were found at the beginning of training in each group. In later sessions such trends were observed only in rats trained with a visual CS. Experiments II and III showed also rapid transfer of avoidance response and a corresponding change of intertrial response rate with the change of CS modality. When the compound CS was used, the effects of the visual element were completely overcome by the auditory one. Rats trained with a visual CS in Experiment IV showed a positive correlation between avoidance performance and the number of intertrial responses, which was more pronounced in earlier than in later training sessions. We consider the rise of intertrial behaviour as an adaptive response to the increase of task difficulty. CSi of different modalities differ not only in relative saliency, but also in the discriminability between their onset and offset. The modality of the CS influences not only avoidance performance but also the course of learning.     

The cause of infection as the main or additional cause of death in patients treated for small cell lung cancer

In 116 out of 845 patients treated for small cell lung cancer (SCLC) in the Institute of Tuberculosis and Chest Disease in Warsaw in the years 1980-1994 infection was the main or coexistent cause of death. In 4.1% infection was proved of bacterial origin and in further 6.5% of probable bacterial origin (in the later group cultures were negative or not done but fungal infection, pneumocystosis pneumonia and tuberculosis were excluded on autopsy). In 1.54% infection was of fungal origin, 1.2% patients died of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and 0.35% of tuberculosis. The majority of patients who died with and/or from infection had treatment-related leukopenia and 99 of them were treated with corticosteroids. Fungal infection, pneumocytosis and tuberculosis were found more frequently than bacterial infection in patients treated with cumulative dose of prednisone above 2000 mg. 33.62% patients had no symptoms or signs of infection. No connection was found between the absence of symptoms and treatment with steroids or the grade of leukopenia. In all cases infection was recognised very late, in 58 only at autopsy.     

Studies on the human mixed lymphocyte culture. I. The influence of the irradiated autogenic and allogenic lymphocytes on DNA synthesis.

Fourteen patients with chronic renal failure and their prospective living donors were examined. DNA uptake by donors' monocultures, recipients' monocultures and mixed cultures was measured. The influence of X-ray treated cells on proliferative capacity of untreated cells in these three types of cultures was studied. The suppressing effect of irradiated cells was found in 52%, the enhancing one in 7% and no effect was observed in 41% of lymphocyte cultures. The possible explanations of the findings are discussed.