Endocrinology and auxology of sibships with non-classical congenital adrenal hyperplasia.

The symptoms, auxological characteristics, and stimulated 17-hydroxyprogesterone (17-OHP) concentrations in a group of patients with non-classical 21-hydroxylase deficiency (NCCAH) were compared with those of their siblings. Ten index cases consisting of nine females and one male patient aged 3-33 years and 16 siblings were studied. In the sibling group five subjects were slightly virilised and of these, two females were found to have NCCAH according to their stimulated 17-OHP concentrations. The remaining nine siblings, who were not virilised, all had normal stimulated 17-OHP concentrations. Among the total NCCAH group (index cases and affected siblings) eight patients had the diagnosis made within two years of the onset of symptoms. In four patients diagnosis was delayed until adulthood. In seven patients investigated, bone age was significantly increased before treatment. The mean height and body mass index Z scores of the affected patients as a total group or when divided according to skeletal maturity were not significantly different from either the normal mean or from their unaffected siblings. Virilised siblings of patients with NCCAH should have stimulated 17-OHP levels measured to exclude the disease. Patients with NCCAH do not appear to be at risk of short adult stature despite increased bone age in childhood.     

Protein nutrition, faecal flora and iron metabolism: the role of milk-based formulae

This paper explores the role of milk-based formulae in achieving four aspects of nutritional health in infants and toddlers: in the suckling, to mimic the amino acid metabolism and the faecal flora of a breast-fed baby; in the weanling, to achieve adequate protein intakes in later infancy and beyond and to achieve satisfactory haemoglobin concentrations in the early toddler years. Milk-based formulae have two roles in infant nutrition: as so-called breast milk substitutes and as a safety net during the weaning period; the latter role may be the more important.     

Spatiotemporal Effects of Syncytial Heterogeneities on Cardiac Far-Field Excitations During Monophasic and Biphasic Shocks

Far-Field Excitation Via Syncytial Heterogeneities. Introduction: It has recently been postulated that syncytial (anatomic) heterogeneities inherent within cardiac tissue might represent a significant mechanism underlying field-induced polarization of the bulk myocardium. This simulation study examines and characterizes the spatiotemporal excitatory dynamics associated with this newly hypothesized mechanism. Methods and Results: Two-dimensional regions of syncytially heterogeneous cardiac tissue were simulated with active membrane kinetics. Heterogeneities were manifested via random spatial variations of intracellular volume fractions over multiple length scales. Excitation thresholds were determined for uniform rectangular monophasic (M) and symmetric biphasic (B) far-field stimuli, from which strength-duration and strength-interval relationships were constructed. For regions measuring 5.4 × 5.4 mm, baseline diastolic thresholds for longitudinal (L) and transverse (T) shocks of 5-msec total duration averaged (in V/cm, n = 10) M-L = 2.87 ± 0.26. M-T = 6.71 ± 0.83, B-L = 3.22 ± 0.25, and B-T = 7.93 ± 0.51. These thresholds decreased by 15% to 25% when the region sizes were increased to 10.8 × 10.8 mm. Strength-duration relationships correlated strongly with the Weiss-Lapicque hyperbolic relationship, with rheobases and chronaxies of 2.33 V/cm and 1.15 msec for M-L stimuli, and 2.28 V/cm and 2.04 msec for B-L stimuli. Strength-interval relationships for M-I. and B-L stimuli decreased monotonically with increasing coupling intervals, with similar minimum coupling intervals at absolute refractoriness. However, the B-L thresholds were substantially less sensitive to changes in coupling intervals than their M-L counterparts. Conclusion: This study provides strong additional support for and understanding of the syncytial heterogeneity hypothesis and its manifested properties. Furthermore, these results predict that syncytial heterogeneities of even modest proportions could represent a significant mechanism contributing to the far-field excitation process.     

Modulation of Healthy Pig Coronary Arteries by Self-Expanding Stents

Objectives: To evaluate the expansion ratio of a self-expanding stem over time, and the chronic effect of stent pressure on the vessel wall . Methods: Self-expanding stents, developed by Medtronic Inc. (Minneapolis, MN, USA) and the Rouen group (Letac, Cribier, France), were implanted in 21 normal pig coronary arteries. Animals were sacrificed after recatheterization at 1 day (group I, n = 4), I week (group 2, n = 3), 3 weeks (group 3, n = 5), or 8 weeks (group 4, n = 4). Histological morphometry of the vessel medial and neointimal layers was performed. Changes were related to the, stent diameter and. its force on the vessel wall . Results: The stent expansion ratio gradually increased from 73% to 93% after 8 weeks, which implicates that radial force decreased concomitantly from 0.10 N to 0.03 N. Media compression under the rods ranged from 4l%-66% immediately after stent implantation. The mean compression was unrelated to stent expansion and remained nearly the same (40%-50%) during follow-up. Individual media rod compression ranged from 5%-95%. The neointimal layer on top of the rods increased until the third week after stent implant (neointimal thickness 211 ± 108 μm). The layer significantly decreased at 8 weeks (neointimal thickness 65 ± 9 μm). The cross-sectional neointimal area increased gradually only at the end of the stent during the 8-week follow-up . Conclusions: The self-expanding stent implanted in normal pig coronary arteries reached a gradual relaxation state 8 weeks after implantation due to the persistent radial force. This radial force induces medial wall compression, which was only positively related to the thickness of the neointimal layer at 3 weeks after implant . (J Interven Cardiol 1996;9:45–52)     

Multiplane Transthoracic Echocardiography: Image Orientation, Anatomic Correlation, and Clinical Experience with a Prototype Phased Array Multiplane Surface Probe

Multiplane transthoracic echocardiography provides numerous sequential images by rotation of the transducer imaging array through 180° with the surface probe at a fixed site. We explored the potential of this new technique with a 3.7/5-MHz prototype multiplane transthoracic probe. Echoanatomic correlations were first examined in ten explanted hearts. The transducer was then applied in 30 normal humans at transthoracic acoustic windows to determine the imaging planes available. Use of this probe in 76 patients with various cardiac disorders indicated that this probe eases the procedure of transthoracic echocardiographic examination, provides incremental information for improved delineation and understanding of cardiac pathology, and yields many novel insights to echocardiographic interpretation. Multiplane transthoracic echocardiography appears to expand the versatility of transthoracic two-dimensional echocardiography.     

Mirror,mirror on the wall,who is the most improved of all?

This article examines the rhetoric and reality of clinical governance in the United Kingdom using the analogy of the New Year pantomime. The authors argue that processes to improve the quality of health care services provision have been in place for many years. Although the terms and language used to describe these processes have, over time, changed, the task remains the same. Clinical governance is the latest in a long list of such changes. The tensions involved in working towards achieving centrally driven targets and performance standards whilst at the same time addressing the huge modernization agenda are explored through managerial and clinical experiences. Whilst the clinical governance approach has undoubtedly achieved improvements, the sustainability of these is questioned. Organisational responses to the current system are explored and a glimpse into the future is given, as the present structures and processes change in 2004. The authors argue that practitioners and managers, who may have survived the current arrangements, might have considerably more difficulty in doing so in the future.     

Prozessoptimierung im „kranken Haus“

Starting January 1st 2004 the German diagnosis-related group (DRG) system was established for in-patient cases. Consequently, the detection and realization of cost-saving potentials are becoming more and more important. For a successful future, efficient allocation of resources is essential. Economically, anaesthesia-related time delays during perioperative work-flow should be minimized. Since numerous entities contribute to perioperative care, it is extremely complex to analyze and optimize this process flow. In this publication single steps leading to an optimized perioperative process flow will be presented: documentation of predefined time points, calculation of relevant time intervals and analysis of key numbers for complex settings. Single steps of the given process analysis will be demonstrated using data from surgical patients at the University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein, Campus Kiel. The attached data collection sheets can be used by interested hospital departments and are meant to serve as a template for further process analyses. Based on the shown analysis, an example will be given to develop an optimized work-flow as a standard operating procedure (SOP). The implementation of the SOP module in an interdisciplinary clinical pathway (CP), which defines efficient medical care from admission to discharge, is mainly responsible for decreased process costs but increased quality of care.