Acute pancreatitis in a low alcohol-consuming community.

The case records 50 patients with abdominal pain and hyperamylasemia were studied in detail. Ten cases of gallstone induced hyperamylasemia, in which no evidence of pancreatitis was found at operation, were excluded. The etiological factors in the remaining group of forty cases of acute pancreatitis, in a community practicing alcohol abstinence, were reviewed.

Neurogenic muscular atrophy in Behcet's disease.

A child is reported with Behcet's disease who presented with skin and joint manifestations, oral ulcers, brainstem syndrome and neurogenic muscular atrophy. The neurogenic muscular atrophy was confirmed by electrophysiologic, histologic and histochemical studies. Electron microscopy of muscle showed a vasculopathy.

A partially histocompatible family of Xenopus borealis.

Reciprocal skin allografts were made between siblings of three successive generations in a family of Xenopus borealis and mutually tolerant animals were mated. In the F3 generation of one subfamily, 92% of the siblings were histocompatible.

Familial spinocerebellar degeneration with corneal dystrophy.

We report on two sisters born to normal but consanguineous parents, with the unusual combination of spinocerebellar degeneration and corneal dystrophy. Their manifestations include mental subnormality, bilateral corneal opacification starting in the second year of life and leading to severe visual impairment, and slowly progressive cerebellar abnormalities with variable dorsal column and upper motor neuron involvement. A third sister had only minor spinocerebellar signs but no eye findings, and three other sibs were completely normal.

Partial (localized) lipodystrophy. Report of a case with muscle and skin abnormalities.

The light and electron microscopic myopathologic and dermatopathologic features in one patient with the partial (localized) type of lipodystrophy are described. The myopathologic changes involve both the contractile elements and the intracellular organelles, especially mitochondria that show hyperplasia and structural alterations of cristae. The dermatopathologic changes consist of a reduction in subcutaneous fat, intercellular edema, and the presence of intracytoplasmic lipid droplets.

Respiratory impairment in coke oven workers: relationship to work exposure and bronchial inflammation detected by sputum cytology.

Coke oven workers are at excess risk of developing lung cancer and may be at risk for chronic obstructive lung disease (COLD). We have studied 3799 male workers to assess the relationship between the two diseases. Repeated lung function and sputum cytology tests were obtained over a 3-year period.

Clofibrate-induced myotoxicity in rats. Temporal profile of myopathology.

In this report, the temporal sequence of myopathology during a clofibrate-induced muscular syndrome and its recovery in rats is described using histopathologic, histochemical and electron microscopic technics. Two stages of myopathology are described: an early stage characterized by myopathic features, and a later stage characterized by neurogenic features. Although muscle histology returns to normal after 1 week of discontinuing the drug, electron microscopic abnormalities persist through the second week.

Survey of neuromuscular disorders in Lebanon. I. Profile of the genetically determined muscular dystrophies.

The clinical and laboratory profiles of 130 cases of muscular dystrophy in Lebanon collected over 35 years (1947-1982) are presented. Data collection included hospital records; registries in the department of pathology, hospital laboratories, electron microscopy facility and electromyography laboratory; and records from a private hospital neurosurgical unit. The yield from each of these sources is presented.

Mechanism of lithium action on the adrenergic function.

The intravenous injection of Lithium chloride (LiCl) in two dose levels (25 & 50 mg/kg) has led to a significant potentiation of the pressor response of rabbits to the i.v administration of both epinephrine and norepinephrine. The i.

An oncogenic cell line inducing transplantable metastasizing adeno-carcinomas in Xenopus borealis.

Three epithelioid cell lines were initiated from stage 35 tadpoles of Xenopus borealis. Cell strain XB693-M1 was obtained by incubation of one of these cell lines in MNNG. The strain is hypotetraploid with a modal chromosome number of 62.

Definition and comparability of nosocomial infection rates.

Nosocomial infection rates are frequently calculated by dividing the number of infections acquired during a month by the number of patients discharged during that month. This method does not allow for prediction of future events or comparability between locations for statistical analysis. A more appropriate rate is the number of infections divided by patient-days spent in the hospital.

Brief clinical report and review: the Marden-Walker syndrome.

We have studied a sibship with one confirmed and three probable cases of the Marden-Walker syndrome (MWS). Our patient had the major manifestations of blepharophimosis and squint; narrowly arched palate with micrognathia; small mouth and mouth-breathing; facial deformities and distortions; congenital muscle weakness with resulting scoliosis; mild pectus excavatum; camptodactylies and hip and finger joints subluxation. In addition, he had small, apparently low-set and slightly malformed auricles with a unilateral preauricular tag.

A comparison of the diencephalic and subcortical telencephalic areas of the brain of Felis jaguarondi and Felis domestica.

The gross topographic features of a freshly prepared brain of the Felis jaguarondi (yagouaroundi) indigenous to Central and South America but rare in North America, was compared with an endocast from the Philippine F. minuta (bengalensis) and brains of the American F. domestica (catus).

Postganglionic cholinergic dysautonomia: report of muscle findings in 1 case.

Heretofore unreported findings in skeletal muscle in a 4th case of pure postganglionic dysautonomia are described. They consist of variation in fiber size, Z line and myofilamentous disorganization, intracytoplasmic inclusions and honeycomb formations. The most striking alterations, however, was excess lipid accumulation without concomitant mitochondrial alterations.

Risk factors for obstructive lung disease.

To assess the role of various risk factors in the pathogenesis of chronic obstructive lung disease (COLD), 163 men and women were followed for approximately 6 yr. Subjects were either community volunteers or relatives of patients with antitrypsin deficiency (PiZ or MZ phenotype). At the onset of the study no subject was receiving medical care for COLD.

Efferent connections of the pulvinar nucleus in the cat.

Discrete unilateral electrolytic lesions were placed in the pulvinar nucleus of cats using the stereotaxic approach. The pathways of the degenerated fibres and their terminals were traced to the cerebral cortex and to subcortical nuclei by the method of Fink-Heimer (anterograde degeneration). The cortical projection sites of the pulvinar are the following: suprasylvian cortex, lateral cortex, ectosylvian cortex, cingulate gyrus, area postsubicularis and retrosplenial gyrus.

Fitting a linear relationship with confidence intervals by correlation.

The study of the empirical linear relationship between two measured variables should use correlation analysis which treats the variables symmetrically, rather than linear regression which inappropriately assumes a dependent and an independent variable. An APL computer program calculates the best fitting bivariate Gaussian distribution and plots the data with the superimposed straight line relationship and the confidence interval.

Cell-mediated immunity in the gecko, Tarentola annularis.

The gecko Tarentola annularis, rejects skin allografts in a chronic manner, whereas the cutaneous response to tuberculin has the characteristics of mammalian delayed hypersensitivity reaction. Moreover, inoculation of gecko's spleen lymphocytes into skin of intact or whole-body--heavily irradiated allogeneic hosts, readily elicits a severe, local reaction (normal lymphocyte transfer reaction). The data indicate that slow skin graft rejection in T.

Childhood idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura in Egypt and the neighboring Arab countries: a regional form with three different patterns of clinical expression.

Childhood idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura in the western world is essentially an acute self-limited disorder. In contrast, the clinical expression of the disease in Arab countries, as revealed by a study of 160 patients from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Oatar and North Sudan, is heterogenous forming a spectrum that includes three distinct clinical forms: (a) the acute self-limited form, (b) the intermediate form, and (c) the chronic adulthood-like form. The relative proportions of these forms were 40.

The myopathology of Behçet's disease--a histochemical, light-, and electron-microscopic study.

The myopathology of Behçet's disease is described in 7 patients using conventional light microscopy, histochemistry, high-resolution light microscopy and electron microscopy. Two patients had clinical evidence of peripheral neuropathy: 5 patients had no clinical evidence of neuromuscular involvement. Histochemical profile of muscle in all patients was normal.