Plasma cell granuloma of the lacrimal sac

A 31-year-old man with a 2-year history of recurrent dacryocystitis underwent dacryocystorhinostomy. An unexpected operative finding was a polyp in the lacrimal sac. Histopathological examination revealed a plasma cell granuloma. The nature of this uncommon inflammatory pseudotumour of the lacrimal sac is discussed.     

Lattice dystrophy of the cornea: a clinicopathological case report

The clinical and pathological corneal findings in a patient with lattice dystrophy of the cornea type I are presented. Amyloid, the corneal stromal deposit in this dystrophy, has been shown to be heterogeneous by means of immunohistochemical techniques despite uniform ultrastructural features. The possible sources of amyloid include leakage from serum, extracellular breakdown of corneal collagen and, most probably, localized intracellular production.     

The fate of the non-operated ear in otosclerosis

Records of 300 consecutive patients who had only one ear operated on by stapedectomy and who received long-term followup were studied. These cases came from 3036 stapedectomy operations performed between January 1961 and April 1969. In general, the two ears behaved the same: if a "flat" sensorineural loss occurred in one ear, it was likely to develop in the other. Similarly, if one ear developed a high-tone loss, the other would do likewise. With the exception of acute fistula, there is no suggestion that the operation of stapedectomy predisposes an ear to late sensorineural problems. Patients with bone-conduction thresholds that are depressed at all frequencies when first examined should be advised that progressive sensorineural hearing loss may occur later in both ears. Accordingly, the benefit gained by stapedectomy may ultimately need to be supplemented by hearing aids. This study also revealed that a patient with clinical conductive otosclerosis in only one ear at first presentation had only a 50% chance of long-term benefit from stapedectomy.     

Appraisal in the diagnostic laboratory of three commercially available anaerobic cabinets

Three commercially available anaerobic cabinets are described and their performance in relation to one another and to a standard anaerobic jar technique are reported upon from a clinical laboratory.     

Involvement of protein kinase c in responses of rat dorsal horn neurons to mechanical stimuli and periaqueductal gray descending inhibition

 The effects of a protein kinase C (PKC) activator, 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA), on the activity and periaqueductal gray (PAG)-induced inhibition of rat dorsal horn neurons of the lumbar spinal cord were tested. A microdialysis fiber was placed through the dorsal horn for the purpose of local application of pharmacological agents. Extracellular single-unit recordings from dorsal horn neurons were made near the microdialysis fiber. TPA was tested on nociceptive dorsal horn cells. There was a significant increase in the background activity and responses to ”brush”, with no changes in responses to pressure and pinch stimuli. TPA also significantly blocked the PAG-induced inhibition of responses to brush, press, and pinch. These effects were eliminated by coadministration of the PKC inhibitor NPC-15437. The solvent, which contained dimethyl sulfoxide, was also tested for its effect on the responses to peripheral mechanical stimuli and PAG-induced inhibition of the dorsal horn neurons. There were no significant changes. This experiment suggests that activation of the PKC second messenger system might increase the activity of dorsal horn neurons and their responses to peripheral stimuli; in addition, the phorbol ester attenuated the PAG-induced descending inhibition of the dorsal horn neuron activity. Received: 15 May 1996 / Accepted: 14 November 1996     

Apolipoprotein epsilon4 allele frequency in young Africans of Ugandan descent versus African Americans

Through its role in lipid metabolism, Apolipoprotein epsilon4 (ApoE4) may affect "brain repair" in stroke, brain hemorrhage, Alzheimer's disease, and other brain injury syndromes for which African Americans may have greater morbidity and mortality. Cross-cultural evaluations of these and other genetic factors may provide insight on possible ethnic differences in risk of morbidity to acute central nervous system (CNS) injury and chronic neurodegenerative processes. As an initial step toward expanding knowledge of ApoE allele frequencies for persons of African descent, we compared ApoE genotype of a group of 70 young Ugandans to 59 (subset of a larger group of 342 African Americans of all ages) age-matched African Americans and to published frequencies for Caucasians and Asians. We found that the ApoE4 and epsilon2 alleles are more frequent in Ugandans (U) than Caucasians (C) or Asians (A) with corresponding alleles showing significant elevations of epsilon2 (U 15.71%, C 8.40%, A 4.20%) and 14 (U 25%, C 13.70%, A 8.90%) (p < .001). Comparing the differences between Ugandans and age-appropriate African Americans (AA) was not statically significant, but this outcome may be due to small sample size. These results provide the only published ApoE frequencies for Ugandans and the complete set of data provides the largest published community group of ApoE frequencies for African Americans.     

PC program for comparing tracking indices in several independent groups

A method for computing a measure of tracking based on Cohen's kappa statistic for one-sample longitudinal data sets was previously described and implemented. This paper shows how one may test the equality of several kappas, each computed from an independent longitudinal sample. Thus, it is possible to formally compare groups of individuals with regard to stability in growth (or adaptive) patterns. Relative assessments of predictability in growth outcomes in different populations can be made with this approach. Also, when a common value of kappa is not contradicted by the data, a method to estimate this value and obtain a confidence interval for it is shown. A menu-driven GAUSS program for carrying out the procedure is described and made available. The method and program are illustrated with three samples of Guatemalan children. © 1992 Wiley-Liss, Inc.