Knowledge of the Brain Death Concept in Dominican Immigration Residents in Spain and Florida

The Latin American population has a double way of immigration, one toward the United States by proximity and another toward Spain by sociocultural affinity. This population increase is affecting organ donation and transplantation in receiving countries.

Panhypopituitarism as first manifestation of a lung cancer

Pituitary metastases of solid tumours are infrequent, specially as a first manifestation. When they happen, they are usually due to breast or lung cancer and are asymptomatic or produce diabetes insipidus. It is very strange that they produce hormonal deficiency. We present a case report of a bronchogenic adenocarcinoma in a 65-year-old man which began with panhypopituitarism, diabetes insipidus and visual alterations. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed a large sellar mass, with clivus infiltration and invading the right cavernous sinus. The biopsy result was adenocarcinoma metastases from lung cancer.     

Fingerprinting of Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Enteritidis by ribotyping

Objective: To carry out an epidemiologic evaluation of Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Enteritidis outbreaks in households and small communities by means of rRNA gene restriction pattern analysis (ribotyping).
Method: One hundred Enteritidis isolates dating from 1989 to 1994 which could be allocated epidemiologically to different sources or to small community outbreaks were investigated with ribotyping, a fingerprinting method in which bacterial DNA is hybridized with the biotin-labeled plasmid pKK 3535 containing a ribosomal RNA operon of Escherichia coli to determine the ribosomal RNA gene restriction patterns.
Results: Four different ribotyping patterns were found with the restriction endonuclease Sma I and nine with Sph I. Ribotypes of isolates which could be allocated epidemiologically to a common source usually corresponded. Almost 60% of the Enteritidis infections had the ribotyping pattern Sph I-A. In contrast, this pattern was not found in any of the five Enteritidis strains isolated in 1989. The suspicion that Enteritidis phage type 4 infections are caused by consumption of insufficiently heated eggs is supported by the fact that the ribotyping pattern Sph 1-A was found in isolates from eggs and from human specimens.
Conclusions: As patterns Sph I-A and Sma I-J appeared in 58% and 75% of the isolates, respectively, ribotyping cannot be used for the differentiation between various outbreaks with these two patterns. In cases where the Enteritidis strains showed less frequent patterns, ribotyping seems to be a practical tool for the identification of infection chains. In addition newly appearing ribotyping patterns can give information about the epidemiologic development of Enteritidis infection.     

Cerebral venous and sagittal sinus thrombosis after transcallosal removal of a colloid cyst of the third ventricle: case report

The authors report a case of cortical vein and sagittal sinus thrombosis after a transcallosal removal of a colloid cyst of the third ventricle. Thirty-six hours after the operation, the patient developed focal seizures; after progressive deterioration, he died on the sixth postoperative day. At the autopsy, a venous hemorrhagic infarct in the right frontoparietal area and fresh thrombus occluding the sagittal sinus and cortical veins were found. The mechanism of cortical vein and sinus thrombosis subsequent to this procedure is discussed, and suggestions are made to prevent this serious complication.     

Stimulation of phagocytic function in mouse macrophages by neurotensin and neuromedin N

The neuropeptides neurotensin and neuromedin N (from 10⁻¹² M to 10⁻⁹ M) have been showed in this study to stimulate significantly in vitro several steps of the phagocytic process: adherence to substrate, chemotaxis, ingestion of inert particles (latex beads) and production of superoxide anion measured by nitroblue tetrazolium reduction in resting peritoneal macrophages from BALB/c mice. A dose-response relationship was observed, with a maximal stimulation of the phagocytic process at 10⁻¹¹ M. The two neuropeptides induced no change of intracellular cyclic AMP in murine macrophages. Moreover, adherence and chemotaxis decreased significantly in the presence of EGTA (1 mM), a chelator of extracellular Ca²⁺, or ryanodine (0.5 mM), a blocker of a Ca²⁺-gated channel from the endoplasmic reticulum, in both controls and samples with the addition of neurotensin or neuromedin N. These results suggest that there is no relation between the cAMP messenger system and the phagocytic process stimulation in murine peritoneal macrophages by neurotensin or neuromedin N. In addition, the results observed with EGTA and ryanodine could indicate that these two neuropeptides produce their effects through an increase of intracellular Ca²⁺ concentration.     

A monoclonal antibody, GR7A4, reacting with the T10 antigen

The monoclonal antibody GR7A4 was produced against a human lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL-B). Biochemical characterization of GR7A4 was carried out with Raji cells in SDS-PAGE studies. GR7A4 precipitated a 43 kd molecule. The tissue distribution and molecular weight were similar to the T10 antigen. Modulation and capping of GR7A4 antigen reduced its binding ability to cells with either GR7A4 or OKT10. However, the cell surface distribution pattern observed was somewhat different from other similar monoclonal antibodies. Thus GR7A4 reacted greatly with pre-B-cell lines, Burkitt cell lines, EBV cell lines and activated PHA, ConA and PWM lymphocytes, however reactivity with leukemic cells was very limited. The kinetics of appearance of GR7A4 antigen on PWM blasts show that this molecule seems to represent an intermediate stage in lymphocytic activation. The differences in comparison with other similar MAbs are discussed and correlated with the peculiar discontinous pattern of appearance of this antigen.     

Effect of MHC class-I transfection on local tumor growth and metastasis in an H-2-negative clone derived from a chemically induced fibrosarcoma.

GR9 is a chemically induced fibrosarcoma composed of clones with different H-2 class-I expression. These clones differ with respect to local growth and spontaneous metastasis. The B9 clone (H-2 negative) is highly tumorigenic (local growth) but of low metastatic potential (spontaneous metastasis assay). We have analyzed the effect that transfection of H-2Dd and H-2Kd genes on this clone have upon local growth, lung colonization after i.v. injection and ability to form spontaneous metastases. The results showed that the effect on local growth of transfection of the Kd-gene was stronger than that of the Dd gene. In addition, B9 co-transfected with H-2Kd and Dd genes showed the highest immunogenic properties in syngeneic BALB/c mice. Interestingly, the pSV2-neo transfected clone gave almost the same result as that obtained with Dd transfection. Lung colonization after i.v. injection of the different clones (experimental metastasis), paralleled the results obtained for local growth: the number of lung nodules followed the cadence KdDd less than Kd less than Dd less than pSV2. Survival of mice was always inversely correlated with local growth, e.g., all mice injected with 5 x 10(5) B9 H-2KdDd transfected cells survived. In contrast, no mice injected with the B9 control did. These differences were abrogated in irradiated and nude BALB/c mice. Finally, all transfected clones remained non-metastatic in a spontaneous metastasis assay, behaving as the control, non-transfected B9 cells.