Use of sonography to evaluate carotid atherosclerosis in the elderly. The Cardiovascular Health Study. CHS Collaborative Research Group

Carotid sonography is being performed on more than 5,000 participants in the Cardiovascular Health Study, a prospective, multicenter study of cardiovascular disease in men and women aged 65 years and older. The sonographic methods used to examine and measure the extracranial carotid arteries are described. Initial validation studies were performed on 61 subjects with a mean age of 68.6 years. Analysis of within- and between-sonographer differences and between-reader differences were performed for selected variables. In general, the mean absolute differences for within- and between-sonographer comparisons were small, with even less variability between readers. Variability was less for the common carotid artery than for the internal carotid artery. These data suggest that carotid sonography is a reliable and reproducible method for use in the study of carotid atherosclerosis in population studies.     

Hypothalamic-hypophyseal-testicular abnormalities and erectile dysfunction

Forty-five men presenting with erectile dysfunction were evaluated through history and nocturnal penile tumescence, Doppler, and EMG studies. Fifteen were classified as having organic and 30 as having psychogenic impotence. Three men had mild hypergonadotropism with low testosterone levels. One had hyperprolactinemia. No case of hypogonadotropic hypogonadism was detected. Six patients who had psychogenic impotence had low levels of testosterone.     

Dengue fever presenting with acute colitis.

Gastrointestinal manifestations of dengue fever are mainly in the form of bleeding or liver function abnormalities. Dengue fever presenting as acute colitis-like picture is not reported to date. We report a 50-year-old man with dengue fever presenting with lower gastrointestinal bleeding and colonoscopic features of acute inflammatory colitis.     

Expression of a 10.5 kDa inhibin in the endometrium of bonnet monkey on treatment with an antiprogestin ZK 98.299: An immunocytochemical study

Immunocytochemical localization of inhibin was carried out in paraffin embedded tissue sections of the control and antiprogestin (ZK 98.299)-treated bonnet monkey endometrium using polyclonal antibodies generated against human seminal plasma inhibin (10.5 kDa). The study shows that administration of low doses (5 mg/ week) of antiprogestin results in an increase in the expression of inhibin by the endometrium. Treatment with higher doses (20 mg/week) caused a decrease in the expression. Since treatment with higher doses also caused atropic changes in the endometrium, the decrease in inhibin could be the result of morphological damage to the endometrium rather than the effects of antiprogestin on the expression of inhibin. The potential involvement of endometrial inhibin in the process of nidation is speculated.     

Inhibition of PHA-stimulated proliferation of peripheral blood mononuclear cells by human seminal plasma inhibin (HSPI)

This report deals with the effect of purified HSPI (10.7 kDa single chain prostatic peptide of 94 amino acids) on PHA-stimulated proliferation of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMNC). HSPI was found to inhibit the incorporation of 3H-thymidine by PHA-stimulated PBMNC in a dose-dependent manner, albeit with the requisite of pretreatment of cells with HSPI. A maximum inhibition was observed on pretreatment for 30 min. These studies thus indicate that HSPI may be interfering with the very early events of PHA-induced signal transduction process in PBMNC.