Frequent attenders in secondary care: a 3-year follow-up study of patients with medically unexplained symptoms

BACKGROUND: There are few longitudinal studies of patients with medically unexplained symptoms. The aim of this study was to investigate outcome in frequent attenders in secondary care who present repeatedly with medically unexplained symptoms. METHOD: Forty-eight patients presenting with medically unexplained symptoms, from a sample of 61, participated in a 3-year follow-up study. Psychiatric morbidity, functional impairment and use of services were evaluated. RESULTS: At follow-up there was a high prevalence of psychiatric morbidity with 69% having at least one psychiatric diagnosis. The sample continued to be high users of a range of health services and substantial functional impairment was reported. CONCLUSION: In this group of frequent attenders with medically unexplained symptoms outcome as measured by psychiatric morbidity, service use and functional impairment remained poor after 3 years.     

High tidal volume ventilation induces proinflammatory signaling in rat lung endothelium

Alveolar overdistension during mechanical ventilation causes leukocyte sequestration, leading to lung injury. However, underlying endothelial cell (EC) mechanisms are undefined. In a new approach, we exposed isolated blood-perfused rat lungs to high tidal volume ventilation (HV) for 2 h, then obtained fresh lung endothelial cells (FLEC) by immunosorting at 4 degrees C. Immunoblotting experiments indicated that as compared with FLEC derived from lungs ventilated at low volume (LV), HV markedly enhanced tyrosine phosphorylation (TyrP). The tyrosine kinase blocker, genistein, inhibited this response. HV also induced focal adhesion (FA) formation in FLEC, as detected by immunofluorescent aggregates of the alpha(v)beta(3) integrin that co-localized with aggregations of focal adhesion kinase (FAK). Immunoprecipitation and blotting experiments revealed that HV increased TyrP of the FA protein, paxillin. In addition, HV induced a paxillin-associated P-selectin expression on FLEC that was also inhibited by genistein. However, HV did not increase lung water. These results indicate that in HV, EC signaling in situ causes FA formation and induces TyrP-dependent P-selectin expression. These signaling mechanisms may promote leukocyte-mediated responses in HV.     

Expression of CD4 on peripheral blood granulocytes. a novel finding in a case of myelodysplastic syndrome in association with t(5;12)

Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are associated with cell maturation defects that can manifest as abnormal surface antigen expression. We describe a patient with refractory anemia with excess blasts, who presented with infection and extensive dysplastic features in peripheral blood granulocytes. The granulocytes expressed CD11b, CD13, CD15, CD33, and CD43. The granulocytes also expressed CD4 antigen. Cytogenetic analysis showed a clonal t(5;12)(q33;p13). The patient improved on antibiotics with partial improvement in the dysplastic features. However, shortly after, the patient experienced paravertebral extramedullary blast transformation followed by a leukemia phase of acute monoblastic leukemia. The patient died a few days later. This is the first report describing anomalous expression of CD4 on granulocytes in MDS. Since the breakpoint on chromosome 12 is near the CD4 gene, which is mapped to 12p12, we hypothesize that dysregulation of the CD4 gene may have occurred resulting in its persistent expression on mature and maturing granulocytes.     

Sonic phase delay from trachea to chest wall: spatial and inhaled gas dependency

A parametric phase delay estimation technique is used to determine the spatial and inhaled gas composition dependencies of sound propagation time through an intact human lung at frequencies of 150–1200 Hz. Noise transmission measurements from the mouth to the extrathoracic trachea and six sites on the posterior chest wall are performed in 11 healthy adult subjects at resting lung volume after equilibration with air, an 80% helium-20% oxygen mixture, and an 80% sulfurhexafluoride-20% oxygen mixture. The phase delay, τ(f), exhibits a bilateral asymmetry with relatively decreased delays to the left posterior chest as compared with the right. The phase delay to lower lung sites is greater than to upper sites at frequencies below 300 Hz; yet the opposite is found at higher frequencies, indicating changing propagation pathways with frequency. There is no measurable effect of inhaled gas composition on τ(f) below 300 Hz. At higher frequencies, changes in τ(f) that reflect the relative sound speed of the particular inhaled gas are observed. These findings support and extend previous measurements and hypotheses concerning the strong frequency dependence of the acoustical properties of the intact respiratory system.     

Primary structure of myosin from the striated adductor muscle of the Atlantic scallop, Pecten maximus, and expression of the Regulatory Domain

We have determined the complete cDNA and deduced amino acid sequences of the heavy chain, regulatory light chain and essential light chain which constitute the molecular structure of myosin from the striated adductor muscle of the scallop, Pecten maximus. The deduced amino acid sequences of P. maximus regulatory light chain, essential light chain and heavy chain comprise 156, 156 and 1940 amino acids, respectively. These myosin peptide sequences, obtained from the most common of the eastern Atlantic scallops, are compared with those from three other molluscan myosins: the striated adductor muscles of Argopecten irradians and Placopecten magellanicus, and myosin from the siphon retractor muscle of the squid, Loligo pealei. The Pecten heavy chain sequence resembles those of the other two scallop sequences to a much greater extent as compared with the squid sequence, amino acid identities being 97.5% (A. irradians), 95.6% (P. magellanicus) and 73.6% (L. pealei), respectively. Myosin heavy chain residues that are known to be important for regulation are conserved in Pecten maximus. Using these Pecten sequences, we have overexpressed the regulatory light chain, and a combination of essential light chain and myosin heavy chain fragment, separately, in E. coli BL21 (DE3) prior to recombination, thereby producing Pecten regulatory domains without recourse to proteolytic digestion. The expressed regulatory domain was shown to undergo a calcium-dependent increase (7%) in intrinsic tryptophan fluorescence with a mid-point at a pCa of 6.6.     

Lipoblastoma and lipoblastomatosis in infancy and childhood: histopathologic, ultrastructural, and cytogenetic features

Lipoblastoma is a relatively rare tumor that occurs in infancy and early childhood and arises from embryonic white fat. Although a benign tumor, lipoblastomas tend to recur and may resemble myxoid liposarcoma. The authors report 26 cases over a 15-year period at Texas Children's Hospital. There was a slight female predilection (14F:12M). The most common symptom was a painless mass with or without increasing size. The trunk, extremities, head and neck, retroperitoneum, inguinal canal, peritoneal cavity, and lung were the tumor sites. Most tumors were circumscribed lipoblastomas and the minority were diffuse infiltrative lipoblastomatosis. Reexcision for residual or recurrent tumor was necessary more frequently in patients with lipoblastomatosis. Histopathologic examination and ultrastructural examination revealed cellular neoplasms composed of immature adipocytes with relatively well-defined septa, frequent lipoblasts, a fine vascular network, and often a myxoid appearance resembling myxoid liposarcoma. Cytogenetics was performed in 4 cases with chromosome 8q abnormality being most common. The major concern with lipoblastoma in children is to completely excise the tumor to avoid leaving residual tumor and to prevent recurrences. Confusion with myxoid liposarcoma, well-differentiated liposarcoma, and typical lipomas may occur. Although asymptomatic, lipoblastomas may cause dysfunction of other organ systems due to mass effect. Complete surgical excision with at least 2 years of follow-up is the preferred therapy.     

Studies on carboxymethylcellulose: Conductivity measurements of solutions, 2

The conductivity behaviour of carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) solutions was studied using different types of neutralizing reagents (LiOH, NaOH, KOH); the following order of conductance of CMC solutions was observed: Li⁺ < Na⁺ < K⁺. This conductance behaviour of CMC solutions with respect to the size of counterions is explained qualitatively as well as quantitatively. Binding of Li⁺, Na⁺ and K⁺ ions onto the polymer molecule and the influence of the degree of substitution, ,DS , on the conductivity of CMC were also investigated. The conductivity of CMC solutions as well as the fraction of bound counterions increase with increasing DS , at a given degree of neutralization (α) for each type of counterion. The effect of DS on the polymer charge fraction, i/s, is in line with the counterion condensation phenomena of Oosawa. The results regarding the dependence of the equivalent conductance of the polyion, Δ_p, on DS are compared with literature data.