Impact Exercise Increases BMC During Growth: An 8‐Year Longitudinal Study

Our aim was to assess BMC of the hip over 8 yr in prepubertal children who participated in a 7‐mo jumping intervention compared with controls who participated in a stretching program of equal duration. We hypothesized that jumpers would gain more BMC than control subjects. The data reported come from two cohorts of children who participated in separate, but identical, randomized, controlled, school‐based impact exercise interventions and reflect those subjects who agreed to long‐term follow‐up (N = 57; jumpers = 33, controls = 24; 47% of the original participants). BMC was assessed by DXA at baseline, 7 and 19 mo after intervention, and annually thereafter for 5 yr (eight visits over 8 yr). Multilevel random effects models were constructed and used to predict change in BMC from baseline at each measurement occasion. After 7 mo, those children that completed high‐impact jumping exercises had 3.6% more BMC at the hip than control subjects whom completed nonimpact stretching activities (p < 0.05) and 1.4% more BMC at the hip after nearly 8 yr (BMC adjusted for change in age, height, weight, and physical activity; p < 0.05). This provides the first evidence of a sustained effect on total hip BMC from short‐term high‐impact exercise undertaken in early childhood. If the benefits are sustained into young adulthood, effectively increasing peak bone mass, fracture risk in the later years could be reduced.     

Estimation of obscure ictal epileptic activity in scalp EEG

Summary We have produced a method to estimate ictal localized epileptic activity hidden among the background in scalp EEGs. When the visually completely different waveforms of the epileptic and background activities are nearly orthogonal, epileptic activity may be approximately extracted from the EEG data matrix by singular value decomposition with subsequent orthogonal rotation to match the distribution of one component with that of the epileptic source. A simulation study was carried out using a matrix mimicking the scalp EEG with an inconspicuous ictal epileptic activity from a dipole source. This hidden epileptic activity was approximately recovered by matching the dipole of interest with the epileptic dipole, even when the simulated waveforms of the epileptic and background activities were not exactly orthogonal. High linear correlation between these two types of waveforms hampered the recovery of the epileptic activity. In another simulation study employing two epileptic dipoles producing activities with the same waveform and a brief time lag, it was indicated that the temporal relationship between the epileptic activities could be also estimated using the cross-correlation function. In the preliminary clinical application of this method to the ictal EEGs of complex partial seizures, rhythmic activities with seemingly epileptic waveforms were estimated at the dipoles which were located in the vicinity of cortical lesions revealed by neuroimaging studies. These activities were indicated to appear before any change in the scalp EEG. We hope for the clinical application of this method for noninvasive estimation of inconspicuous ictal epileptic activity.The authors thank Prof. Peter K.H. Wong of the Department of Paediatrics, University of British Columbia, Canada, and Prof. Yutaka Tanaka and Mr. Kim Hyun Bin of the Department of Environmental and Mathematical Sciences, Faculty of Environmental Science and Technology, Okayama University, Japan, for their technical suggestions. This study was aided by a grant from the Japan Epilepsy Research Foundation.     

Occult malignant breast lesions in 114 patients: relationship to age and the presence of microcalcifications

This study evaluates the mammographic findings in 352 patients, aged 30-85 years, who underwent spot localization and biopsy for evaluation of nonpalpable breast abnormalities. Malignancy was found at biopsy in 114 cases. The mammographic appearance (specifically, whether grouped microcalcifications, mass, or both were present) was correlated with patient age and histologic findings (specifically, whether the pathologic changes were infiltrating or noninfiltrating in nature). The prevalence of malignant conditions increased directly with age. The presence of grouped microcalcifications as the sole indicator of malignancy was seen in 100% (seven of seven) of the patients in the 30-39-year age group, 64% (18 of 28) in the 40-49-year age group, 37% (11 of 30) in the 50-59-year age group, 30% (seven of 23) in the 60-69-year age group, and 23% (six of 26) in the 70-85-year age group. Of the 49 tumors that were manifested solely as microcalcifications, 34 (69%) were noninfiltrating. The finding of grouped microcalcifications should be aggressively investigated, since it may indicate noninfiltrating carcinoma in an early stage, when the potential for cure is greatest.     

Long term central vascular access through the gonadal vein.

A technique for long term central venous access through the gonadal vein is described. It has been used five times in four patients with consistently satisfactory results.