Activity increase after extraction of alkaline phosphatase from human osteoblastic membranes by nonionic detergents: influence of age and sex.

The solubilization of alkaline phosphatase (AP) from osteoblastic cell membranes obtained from human primary bone cell cultures was studied according to the age and sex of the donors (17 females, 11 males; age range: 2-77 years). Cell membranes were treated by non-ionic (n-octyl beta-D-glucopyranoside, OG), ionic or zwitterionic detergents, then centrifuged. When OG was used almost all the AP was solubilized.

Course of valvular strands in patients with stroke: cooperative study with transesophageal echocardiography.

Background: Native valve strands might be related to the acute stage of thrombosis or might suggest a long-term valvular change. We aimed to estimate changes in the strands in patients with stroke through a serial transesophageal echocardiographic (TEE) study.

Methods And Results: A study was conducted among patients who were referred for TEE for stroke or cardiac pathology.

[Recurrent Miller Fisher syndrome and anti-GQ1b antibodies].

Introduction: Miller-Fisher syndrome is defined by the triad: ophthalmoplegia, ataxia and areflexia. This rare entity is generally regarded as a variant of the Guillain-Barré syndrome, although neurophysiological patterns differ. In the acute phase of the disease, sera of affected patients contain high titers of antiganglioside anti-GQ1b, which is a specific marker.

Cerebral metastases as first symptom of bronchogenic carcinoma. A prospective study of 37 cases.

Among the patients showing evidence of cerebral metastases without previously known cancer history, lung cancer has been found 37 times as the primary tumor in our institution. There were 34 men and three women and all but two were heavy smokers. Only one presented at diagnosis with thoracic symptoms but the chest radiograph was abnormal in 34.

[Prolonged absence states in aged patients without epileptic antecedents].

Eight cases of [absence status] are reported, occurring in old patients (7 females, 1 male), mean age 75 years, without any known history of epilepsy. The main clinical feature was a fluctuating state of consciousness, during which the EEG showed diffuse spikes and polyspikes with a frontal predominance. These abnormalities disappeared after intravenous benzodiazepine administration, resulting in most cases in a spectacular clinical improvement.

[Voluntary methanol poisoning. Severe regressive encephalopathy with anomalies on x-ray computed tomography].

A 32 year-old woman after voluntary intoxication with methanol presented, after coma with metabolic acidosis, a prolonged parkinsonian syndrome improved by L-dopa. Initial findings were areflexia and electromyographic signs of neurogenic atrophy of lower limbs. A moderate decrease in visual acuity was associated with altered visual evoked potentials indicating a global lesion of the optic tracts.

[Hallervorden-Spatz disease with Lewy bodies].

At the age of 6 years a patient developed disorders of character, intellectual deterioration, tremor, falls and epileptic seizures. This was followed by extrapyramidal and pyramidal disorders with a fatal outcome at age 21. There was no family history.

[X-ray scanning in Marchiafava-Bignami disease].

CT scan in 4 patients with Marchiafava-Bignami's disease in its acute alcoholic form, who died after 12, 18, 30 and 50 days respectively, demonstrated large symmetrical bilateral hypodense areas in the hemispheric white substance. These areas were either widespread or more marked posteriorly, and were independent of the corpus callosum. Pathologic examination of the brains showed necrotic regions, often with cavities, or areas of demyelinization of the centrum ovale correlating with the hypodense areas as seen on CT scans.

[Primary non-Hodgkin's lymphoma of the brain, sarcoidosis, thyroid cancer and immunity cell deficiency (author's transl)].

A 66-year-old man presented with a primary malignant lymphoma of the cerebellum and brain stem. The lymphoma was of type V (Bryon's classification) with predominant B cells, and was associated, as in previously reported cases, with a peripheral blood T lymphocyte deficiency. This case was unusual, in that autopsy revealed an active multivisceral sarcoidosis (considered as being cured more than 10 years previously), a clear-cell renal adenoma demonstrating nearly all the characteristics of a Grawitz's tumor, and a papillary epithelioma of the thyroid gland.