Initial assessment of α-synuclein structure in platelets

Journal of Thrombosis and Thrombolysis - Over the last few years data from our group have indicated that α-synuclein is important in development of immune cells as well as potentially...     

The molecular and clinical impact of hepatocyte growth factor, its receptor, activators, and inhibitors in wound healing

Wound healing involves a number of cellular and molecular events, many of which are controlled by soluble growth factors. In the process of healing, hepatocyte growth factor, a cytokine known to act as mitogen, motogen, and morphogen, has been postulated to play multiple roles during several stages of this complex biological process. Produced primarily by stromal fibroblasts, hepatocyte growth factor regulates angiogenesis, vascular permeability, cell migration, matrix deposition and degradation, and other biological processes. The current article discusses recent progress in understanding the multiple roles played by this growth factor in tissue repair.     

Use of CO2 to move structures as an aid to percutaneous procedures

By injecting small amounts of CO2 through a needle, one can move bowel or bladder from the intended path of instruments during interventional procedures. The technique worked well in six of seven cases in the pelvis and retroperitoneum; it was not effective in the mediastinum or midabdomen (n = 6).     

The influence of sleeping sickness on mortality in two districts of Northern Nigeria

The object of this enquiry was to obtain some idea of the mortality of untreated sleeping sickness in two non-adjacent districts in Northern Nigeria. The method employed was to obtain data, by methodical questioning of every householder, from which the crude death and other rates could be calculated over a preceding period, and be correlated with the known incidence of sleeping sickness. The figures were worked out village by village, and the villages then combined into groups of sufficient size to make the numbers significant.In the first district, Igabi, a close correlation was obtained, the death rate rising from 71.4 per 1,000 with a sleeping sickness incidence of 18.6 per cent., to 104 per 1,000 with a sleeping sickness incidence of 28.6 per cent. In other words an additional death occurred for approximately every additional three people infected. The infantile mortality rate also showed a close correlation with the sleeping sickness incidence. As infants were not found to be infected, this result was unexpected. The reasons for it are discussed. The birth rate showed no definite correlation.In the second district, Kankara, no correlation was found to exist, and the conclusion is drawn that, during the period under review, sleeping sickness was not fatal; the patients must either have harboured a mild chronic infection carrying no threat to life, or have been undergoing spontaneous cure.The clinical types of the cases found are described. They are similar in the two districts, and would not have been suspected of having so different a prognosis.It is pointed out that Igabi lies in the middle of a sleeping sickness belt, and it is suggested that the virulence of the disease in this district may be accounted for by the very free means of communication which exist, and by the movement in the past of large gangs of labour, tending to disseminate many different strains of trypanosome imported from outside. The infection in Kankara, on the other hand, was probably of later, though not very recent, introduction; and as the district is situated on the very edge of the belt and is traversed by no main roads or railways, the possibility of a multiplicity of strains existing is very much less. If this conclusion is correct, it emphasizes the necessity of careful sleeping sickness control measures in areas which may be opened up in the future.The mean birth rate found in Igabi was 64.7 per 1,000; and the mean death rate 84.2. The corresponding figures for Kankara were 44.1 and 23.6. The reliability of these figures is discussed.     

外科手术中产生的烟气:仅仅是大量的热空气吗?

外科医生和手术室人员经常接触手术设备产生的烟气,病人也会暴露于烟气中,特别是腹腔镜手术中产生的烟气滞留于腹腔内这一密闭空间并被吸收.这些烟气是一种与香烟烟气相似的毒性物质,然而对这种毒性物质的影响还未引起足够重视.应该采取必要措施尽可能减少手术中烟气的不良影响.