Reversible Quantitative EEG Changes in a Case of Cyclic Vomiting: Evidence for Migraine Equivalent

Medical experts have disputed whether childhood cyclic vomiting is a manifestation of epilepsy or a migraine equivalent. Quantitative EEG provides an objective measure of changes in brain activity during and between episodes. This paper reports reversible changes involving two episodes in a patient whose history included cyclic vomiting and emotional/behavioural problems. Abnormal delta activity seen during both episodes resolved at follow-up, when the patient asymptomatic. The brain wave changes counter the hypothesis that vomiting in these patients is psychosomatic, and support the interpretation of cyclic vomiting as a migraine equivalent.     

Influence of pain and urinary symptoms on quality of life in young men with chronic prostatitis-like symptoms

BACKGROUND: Our aims in the present study were to estimate the influences of pain and urinary symptoms on quality of life, and to determine which of these two variables has the most predictive power with respect to quality of life in young men with chronic prostatitis-like symptoms. METHODS: Chronic prostatitis-like symptoms were measured by the National Institutes of Health-Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index. Of the 28,841 men aged 20 years who lived in the study community, 18,495 men (a response rate 64.1%) agreed to participate in the study. A total of 1057 men who complained of symptoms indicative of chronic prostatitis were included in the study. The influences of pain and urinary symptoms on quality of life were determined using logistic regression analysis. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to estimate the predictive ability of each of these variables with respect to quality of life. RESULTS: Results from multivariate analysis showed that both pain and urinary symptoms were associated with an increased likelihood of impaired quality of life, although pain contributed more to a reduced quality of life than urinary symptoms. Relative to men who experienced mild pain, men who experienced moderate pain had a 3.9-fold risk of poor quality of life (odds ratio [OR], 3.87; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.86-5.23; P < 0.001) and those who experienced severe pain had a 15.7-fold risk of reduced quality of life (OR, 15.68; 95% CI, 6.59-37.35; P < 0.001). Moderate urinary symptoms were associated with a 1.4-fold risk of bother (OR, 1.41; 95% CI, 1.01-1.99; P < 0.001) and severe urinary symptoms were associated with 2.4-fold risk (OR, 2.39; 95% CI, 1.37-4.12; P < 0.001), relative to mild urinary symptoms. Comparison of the effects of pain and urinary symptoms showed that pain severity had the most predictive power for bother, quality of life, and quality-of-life impact. The areas under the ROC curves for bother, quality of life, and quality-of-life impact were 71.3%, 69.3% and 72.5%, respectively. CONCLUSION: Urinary symptoms and pain might be associated with an increased likelihood of impaired quality of life in young men with chronic prostatitis-like symptoms. In addition, our findings suggest that pain severity is the most influential variable for determining quality of life in this population.     

Methionine adenosyltransferase and S-adenosylmethionine in the developing rat lens

Methionine adenosyltransferase (MAT) activity, and the concentration of its reaction product, S-adenosylmethionine (AdoMet), were measured in the lenses of rats of different ages; ranging from 1 day of age to over 1 yr. The highest specific activity of MAT was found in the lenses of the one day old rats (sp. ac. 0.327 units/mg-1 protein). After 1 week the specific activity had dropped to 0.067, and by 6 weeks had declined to adult levels (0.02 units/mg-1 protein). AdoMet concentrations were measured by HPLC in perchloric acid extracts. The highest concentration of AdoMet was found in the lenses of day-old rats (48.2 microM), and gradually declined with increasing age, reaching 5.5 microM in the oldest rats. In addition, the specific activity of MAT was found to be higher in the lens epithelium than in the cortex plus nucleus. The specific activity of MAT is almost an order of magnitude higher in the lens epithelial fraction (0.099 units mg-1 protein) than in the combined cortex plus nucleus fraction (0.011 units mg-1 protein).