One-stage hepatectomy in the dog

This report describes a technique for total hepatectomy in the dog. The procedure maintains the integrity of the gastrointestinal tract and the pancreas in the normothermic, anesthetized animal. The technique involves (i) a mesentericocaval shunt, (ii) a temporary external bypass between the femoral and jugular veins, and (iii) a permanent internal bypass between the abdominal and thoracic inferior vena cava through the tendinous area of the diaphragm. This 60- to 70-min procedure yields a preparation useful for short-term metabolic studies in nonhepatic tissues.     

Implications of the revised surveillance definition: AIDS among New York City drug users.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has proposed revising the AIDS surveillance definition to include any HIV-seropositive person with a CD4 cell count of less than 200 cells per microliter. Based on a study of persons receiving treatment for HIV infection, this new definition would lead to an estimated 50% increase in the number of persons recognized as living with AIDS. Among 440 HIV-seropositive research subjects recruited from drug treatment programs and through street outreach in New York City, 59 met this definition, yet only 25% of those had been reported to the New York City AIDS registry. The new definition, if combined with HIV and T-cell testing at drug treatment and street outreach programs, could thus yield very large increases in the number of injecting drug users meeting the new surveillance definition of AIDS.     

Mechanism and prediction of nonspecific toxicity to fish using bioconcentration characteristics

A basic theory of nonspecific toxicity has been developed using bioconcentration as a basis and applying kinetic relationships developed in previous work. This approach has involved calculation of the critical volume fraction and critical concentration in lipid tissue of fish for a variety of organic compounds at the lethal level. Corrections to previous data sets for time period of exposure and inclusion of biodegradable compounds did not make a significant improvement in the values obtained. A new data base with compounds containing a wide range of Kow values gave results for critical volume and concentration similar to previous work. The influence of experimental procedures and methods for data development are considered. The basic theoretical derivation developed was found to provide a basis for predicting the approximate nonspecific toxicity of nondegradable lipophilic organic compounds at different exposure time periods. This requires a knowledge of the Kow value and the clearance rate constant (k2) which can be calculated from the Kow value.     

Intrauterine cerebral infarcts and bilateral frontal cortical leukomalacia following chronic maternal inhalation of carburetor cleaning fluid during pregnancy.

Little is known about the effect of inhalation of methanol and other solvents on the pregnancy and the growth of the fetus. We report a preterm male infant who developed cerebral infarcts in utero, leading to large areas of bilateral frontal cortical leukomalacia following chronic maternal inhalation of carburetor-cleaning fluid during pregnancy. The infant presented with acute fetal distress with significant metabolic acidosis at birth. Initial hypotonia was followed by generalized hypertonicity. This infant did not exhibit typical facial features of fetal alcohol syndrome.