Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring

Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) in adults is proving to be useful. The aim of this study was to determine if ABPM is accurate in the lower blood pressure range encountered in children and, equally important, whether it is acceptable to children. Thirty one children, between the ages of 6 and 18 years, were assessed using an ambulatory blood pressure monitor that uses an auscultatory method. Blood pressure was measured in the contralateral arm with a mercury sphygmomanometer and an oscillometric device at the beginning and end of the study for comparison. Over a blood pressure range of 90-130 mm Hg systolic and 40-80 mm Hg diastolic, a close agreement was found with the sphygmomanometer; the limits of agreement (+/- 2 SD) were 11.6 mm Hg for systolic blood pressure and 13.6 mm Hg for diastolic blood pressure. The bias was less than 1.0 mm Hg. The ambulatory device was worn by all patients for at least 16 hours with an average of 52 recordings per patient. The majority found the device comfortable to wear and were not woken from sleep.     

Pentazocine,cyclazocine, and nalorphine as discriminative stimuli

Pentazocine, cyclazocine, and nalorphine are narcotic antagonists that also have analgesic activity of their own. the present investigation compared the stimulus properties of these three drugs in rats. Each drug was used as a discriminative stimulus for a separate group of rats. Depression of one lever resulted in food reinforcement following the administration of drug, and the opposite lever was reinforced after saline. Each drug readily acquired control of discriminated responding. The specific narcotic antagonist, naloxone, which antagonizes many of the effects of pentazocine, cyclazocine, and nalorphine, also antagonized the discrimination of these drugs. Stimulus generalization tests to each other narcotic antagonist, d-amphetamine, morphine, and LSD, showed that each narcotic antagonist has highly specific stimulus properties. Clear generalization occurred only to pentazocine and cyclazocine in the nalorphine-saline group, but neither cyclazocine nor pentazocine generalized to nalorphine.     

Partial trisomy of the long arm of chromosome 1 in myelofibrosis and polycythemia vera

We have identified partial trisomy 1q in 2 patients with different hematologic disorders. The first patient was a 55-year-old female with myelosclerosis and myeloid metaplasia diagnosed at age 38 years presenting with anemia, fatigue, bruising, fever, and splenomegaly. At age 56, she had 50–95% myeloblast cells and 95–100 nucleated RBC precursors per 100 WBC. Chromosome analysis of unstimulated leukocytes with Q, G, and C banding showed 46,XX,-6,+t(1;6) (q25;p22) in all metaphase cells. In vitro incorporation of Fe⁵⁵ was demonstrated in 90% of metaphases by autoradiography. The second patient, a 49-year-old male, was diagnosed as having polycythemia vera at age 30 during a regular checkup. He since developed hepatosplenomegaly. Chromosome analysis from a direct bone marrow preparation at age 44 and 45 showed grossly normal karyotypes. At age 49, his marrow by Q and G banding showed almost 100% of cells with 46,XY,–13,+t(1;13) (q12;p12). Eleven cases of trisomy of 1q have been reported in various hematologic disorders. It is apparent that partial trisomy 1q represents another nonrandom chromosomal abnormality, in addition to the most common nonrandom chromosomal aberrations, such as the Philadelphia chromosome, trisomy 8, trisomy 9, and monosomy 7 in hematologic disorders.     

Cellular metachromasia in Pompe's disease and Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease

Two additional diseases, Pompe's disease and Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease, have been shown to demonstrate cellular metachromasia. In addition, our studies of metachromasia in fibroblasts from skin biopsies taken from patients with a variety of other disorders are described and our impression of the limited usefulness of metachromasia is discussed.     

Furazolidone in paediatric cholera

Tetracycline continues to be an effective antimicrobial agent in the clinical control of cholera but because of its high cost, relatively short shelf-life and recent reports of increased resistance of vibrios to tetracycline in vitro, alternative antimicrobial agents have been tested. Furazolidone, effective against cholera caused by the El Tor biotype in adults, was found to be as effective as tetracycline in reducing the volume and duration of diarrhoea in children with classical cholera and, given over a period of 7 days, only slightly less effective in reducing duration of vibrio excretion.