Rejuvenation in the early 20th century

Summary. The first theoretical reflections concerning the relation of hormone production with the ageing process stemmed from Charles Edouard Brown-Sequard (1817–1894). At the age of 72 years he experimented on himself with an injection of animal testicular extract.
The Viennese physiologist Eugen Steinach (1861–1944) gained world-wide acknowledgement for his theory of 'autoplastic' treatment of ageing. He deduced that after vasoligation, an increased incretory hormonal production would ensue following the cessation of the secretory output of the gonads. The first operation was performed in 1918 and resulted in a vasectomy boom over the next two decades.
The Russian Serge Voronoff (1866–1951), working in Paris, was one of the first to transplant testicular tissue from a monkey into a human reproductive gland in 1920. Five years later he had already performed this procedure on 300 patients and attracted patients from all over the world.
In America early efforts of human testicular transplantation were performed by Frank Lydston and V.D. Lespinasse. Steinach's vasoligation was taken over by many American doctors, e.g., Harry Benjamin and Charles H. Chetwood. Among the patients who underwent a rejuvenation operation according to Steinach's method were Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) and the Irish poet and Nobel Prize winner William Butler Yeats (1865–1939). Two caricatures from the German magazine Simplicissimus published in 1927, confirm that the rejuvenation operations were constantly in the limelight of the printed media. From 1935 onwards rejuvenation operations gradually lost their appeal due to the introduction of artificial androgens.     

Viral myocarditis--new aspects of pathomechanisms, diagnosis and therapy

The diagnosis of "viral myocarditis" remains uncertain in most cases, despite varied efforts to obtain diagnostic criteria and techniques. The combination of virological, histological and immunohistological data may offer an opportunity to improve diagnosis. The pathophysiological processes which are involved in the transition from myocarditis into dilated cardiomyopathy are still unclear. A variety of new data point out that viral infection induces a loss of self-tolerance and subsequent autoaggression towards myocardial structures. The management of viral myocarditis remains problematic and a specific form of therapy still does not exist. Studies on immune suppressive therapy are contradictory. Moreover, in these studies the diagnostic criteria were non-uniform and the number of patients was low. Nevertheless, immune suppressive therapy can be very effective in individual cases. But until now, a clear decision cannot be made on the selection of those patients who would respond favourably to immune suppressive therapy. Only controlled studies which consider the aetiology, the grade of clinical severity, the duration of clinical symptoms, the degree of cellular infiltration, and the histological alterations may answer the questions concerning the benefit of immune suppressive therapy for viral myocarditis and its sequelae. Until these studies are available, the general implementation of immune suppressive therapy in viral heart disease should not be recommended, especially in view of the incidence of side effects.     

Analysis of the coxsackievirus B-adenovirus receptor gene in patients with myocarditis or dilated cardiomyopathy

Myocarditis and dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) are common causes of morbidity and mortality in children and adults, most commonly due to infection with coxsackievirus B or adenovirus. Increased expression of the common human coxsackievirus B-adenovirus receptor (CAR) has been reported in patients with DCM. We investigated the CAR gene in patients with acquired or familial myocarditis/DCM for mutations/polymorphisms. Several polymorphisms or intronic substitutions, distant from the intron-exon boundaries, were identified but no mutations. Based upon these data it appears that CAR gene mutations are not a major host determinant in the development of myocarditis and DCM.     

Association of tumor induced vascularization with clinicopathological parameters in cervical neoplasm

Angiogenic properties have been shown in preinvasive cervical lesions. Our goal was to determine the angiogenesis in cervical intraepithelial neoplasms (CIN), the relationship between microvessel counts, histopathological parameters and the clinical outcome in invasive cervical carcinoma. Comparison of microvessel counts from normal epithelium with that from CIN and invasive carcinoma showed significant increases in pre-cancerous lesions and invasive cancer (p < 0.0001). Microvessel density, assessed by CD31 immunostaining, was found to be associated with the overall survival in women with clinical stage IB cervical carcinoma (p < 0.03). There was a significant association of microvessel density (p < 0.05) with relapse-free survival in patients with regional lymph node metastasis.     

Temporäre Instrumentation bei Luxationen, Subluxationen und Frakturen der unteren HWS

The anterior interbody fusion with instrumentation seems to be the standard procedure in unstable traumatic lesions of the lower cervical spine. The goal of this study was to objective the outcome of patients, treated by only temporary stabilisation of the injured motion segment (without bone-graft fusion). Between 1990 and 1998 155 patients with traumatic lesions of the cervical spine were treated operatively, in 22 cases transfixation of the injured level without bone-graft application was performed, an implant-removal was carried out in 12 patients so long. Only patients were included into the study, who were less then 45 years old at trauma and who had no trauma related osseous or disc encrouchment of the spinal canal. Not included were patients with degenerative formations of the cervical spine at time of trauma. Until follow up all patients with implantat removal returned back to work in their former profession, 11 of 12 patients classified their result as excellent or good. No secondary instabilities or postraumatic disc prolapse were observed. Restmobility in flexion/extension of the injured level was demonstrated in 8 patients. The preservation of traumatized motion segments may reduce the incidence of degenerative alterations and hypermobilities in adjacent levels. The transfixation technique in anterior procedures leads to a reduced time of spinal exposure, complications as a result of spinal graft manipulation, pseudarthrosis or donor graft site problems are no more relevant.     

The history of endocrine therapy of benign and malignant diseases of the prostate

The discovery of endocrine therapy of diseases of the prostate can be regarded as one of the most important events in the history of medicine and in urology in particular. This article delivers an overview about scientists and clinicians involved in this work during the last 200 years. A close historical relation between the endocrine therapy of benign prostatic hyperplasia and prostate cancer can be recognized. The historical framework between the work of John Hunter in the late eighteenth century, that of Charles Brenton Huggins in the late 1930s, and that of Andrew Schally in the 1970s has been assembled herein. With respect to all the other men who contributed greatly to this medical achievement, e.g., Edward L. Keyes and Russell S. Ferguson, with their first report on radioorchiectomy for the treatment of metastatic prostate cancer in 1936, this historical vignette is intended to make them part of the historical record.