A critical evaluation of the electronic surgical logbook

Background  

The Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland (ASGBI) devised the electronic surgical logbook (version 2.4) for higher trainees in General Surgery enabling trainees to compile a uniform data set of their operative and training experience. This is in use by higher surgical trainees (HST) in the United Kingdom. This logbook permits trainees to submit data centrally into a Regional Analysis Database (RAD). With the implementation of the European Working Time Directive (EWTD) there is need for reliable data to assess the effects of the directive on training. In order to draw meaningful conclusions from the database the quality of data needs to be validated. We critically analysed the RAD in the Yorkshire region for a one-year period.     

Development of the New Lung Allocation System in the United States

This article reviews the development of the new U.S. lung allocation system that took effect in spring 2005. In 1998, the Health Resources and Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services published the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) Final Rule. Under the rule, which became effective in 2000, the OPTN had to demonstrate that existing allocation policies met certain conditions or change the policies to meet a range of criteria, including broader geographic sharing of organs, reducing the use of waiting time as an allocation criterion and creating equitable organ allocation systems using objective medical criteria and medical urgency to allocate donor organs for transplant. This mandate resulted in reviews of all organ allocation policies, and led to the creation of the Lung Allocation Subcommittee of the OPTN Thoracic Organ Transplantation Committee. This paper reviews the deliberations of the Subcommittee in identifying priorities for a new lung allocation system, the analyses undertaken by the OPTN and the Scientific Registry for Transplant Recipients and the evolution of a new lung allocation system that ranks candidates for lungs based on a Lung Allocation Score, incorporating waiting list and posttransplant survival probabilities.     

Vesicular pityriasis rosea: response to erythromycin treatment

Pityriasis rosea (PR) is a relatively common disease although its aetiology has not yet been identified. It occurs worldwide and there is no racial susceptibility factor. It usually affects teenagers and young adults between 10 and 35 years of age. Typical PR is much easier to diagnose than the rare atypical forms. We report a rare case of vesicular PR in a black woman who had vesicular lesions limited to her palms and soles in addition to regular typical lesions. We devised an efficient oral erythromycin treatment for this patient.     

Metabolism of the bay-region diol-epoxide of chrysene to a triol-epoxide and the enzyme-catalysed conjugation of these epoxides with glutathione

Metabolic activation of chrysene in mouse skin appears to involver-1,t-2-dihydroxy-t-3,4-oxy-1,2,3,4-tetrahydrochrysene (anti-chrysene-1,2-diol 3, 4-oxide) and 9-hydroxy-r-1,t-2-dihydroxy-t-3, 4-oxy-1,2, 3, 4-tetrahydrochrysene (anti-9-OH-chrysene-1, 2-diol 3,4-oxide). The enzyme-catalysed conjugation of these epoxideswith [³⁵S]glutathione has been studied in experiments in whichthe glutathione conjugates were separated by h.p.l.c. and examinedby fluorescence spectrophotometry. Both anti-chrysene-1, 2-diol3, 4-oxide and anti-9-OH-chrysene-1, 2-diol 3, 4-oxide formedconjugates nonenzymically and both were shown to be substratesfor rat liver glutathione transferases. When anti-chrysene-1,2-diol 3, 4-oxide was incubated with [³⁵S]glutathione and arat liver microsomal metabolizing system, glutathione conjugateswith h.p.l.c. and fluorescence spectral characteristics identicalto those of conjugates formed from both anti-chrysene-1, 2-diol3,4-oxide and anti-9-OH-chrysene-1, 2-diol 3, 4-oxide were detected.This finding provides evidence that anti-chrysene-1, 2-diol3, 4-oxide can be further metabolized to the triolepoxide, anti-9-OH-chrysene-1,2-diol 3, 4-oxide by rat liver microsomal systems.