[Interprofessional collaboration between new nursing graduates and social workers: Hospital discharge planning telephone calls.].

Introduction: In hospitals, the discharge of patients needing home care or going to a care facility is planned interprofessionally, in particular via telephone calls between nurses and social workers.

Context: During discharge planning, the collaboration between a nurse and a social worker is fraught with tension. When this planning is conducted over the phone and the nurse is a new graduate, the tension can be heightened.

Prognostic coronary surgery in a case of malignant mesothelioma previously managed with trimodality treatment.

We report a case of malignant pleural mesothelioma treated with trimodality treatment. At three years after the extrapleural pneumonectomy, coronary artery revascularisation surgery for NSTEMI was performed in view of favourable long term prognostic and survival outcome. Five years following pleuropneumonectomy there is no clinical or radiological evidence of mesothelioma and the patient remains free of cardiac symptoms.

Systemic effects of epidural methylprednisolone injection on glucose tolerance in diabetic patients.

Background: Several studies have shown that in diabetic patients, the glycemic profile was disturbed after intra-articular injection of corticosteroids. Little is known about the impact of epidural injection in such patients. The goal of this study was double, at first comparing the glycaemic profile in diabetic patients after a unique injection of 80 mg of acetate methylprednisolone either intra-articular or epidural and secondly to compare the amount of systemic diffusion of the drug after both procedures.

Malignant optic glioma presenting as an acute anterior optic neuropathy.

Purpose: To describe an uncommon case of malignant optic glioma and the challenges in its diagnosis.

Methods: Case report with funduscopic, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and automated field test correlations.

Patient: A 60-year-old man presented with a 1-week history of left optic disk swelling and optic neuropathy that was initially diagnosed as nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NA-AION).

Mycobacterium hemophilum infection presenting as filamentary keratopathy in an immunocompromised adult.

Purpose: To report a case of Mycobacterium hemophilum of the eye.

Methods: Case report with pathologic correlation. A 55-year-old Malaysian man with a 3-year history of graft-versus-host disease presented with dry eye and keratopathy.

Endocrine mucin-producing sweat gland carcinoma: report of a case and review of the literature.

Mucinous carcinoma of skin (MCS) is an uncommon adnexal tumor of disputed differentiation. In 1995, Rahilly et al. reported a case of MCS with neuroendocrine differentiation (E-MCS).

[Diabetic nephropathies: therapeutic aspects].

The incidence of diabetic nephropathy has declined these last decades, but diabetes mellitus still remains the commonest cause of end-stage renal failure, due to an increased prevalence of diabetes mellitus and a longer life expectancy for diabetic patients. The aim of this review is to describe the natural history of diabetic nephropathy and discuss the influence of many factors such as genetic and non-genetic progression promoters, hypertension, hyperglycemia, dyslipidemia, proteinuria and tobacco. Because only a comprehensive treatment strategy of these promoters will reduce the risk of end-stage renal failure, the inclusion of cardiovascular risk factors management and the screening of cardiovascular disease will further contribute to reduce the very high mortality of diabetic patients suffering of diabetic nephropathy.

[Diabetic foot: a public health problem too often underestimated. Consequences and therapeutic possibilities].

The clinical screening of diabetic patients at risk for foot ulcer should be regularly performed by all physicians and health professionals in charge of these patients. In addition, the high risk patient should be also educated to detect high risk foot lesions. This step represents the first strategy in order to prevent this too frequent complication of diabetes mellitus.

[Adrenal insufficiency caused by treatment with levothyroxine].

Primary adrenal insufficiency is a rare disease. Its diagnosis remains a clinical challenge since the signs and symptoms of the disease are insidious in onset and non specific in nature. A case report of Addison's crisis induced by levothyroxine substitution therapy is described.

Suppression of specific and bystander IgE responses in a mouse model of oral sensitization to beta-lactoglobulin.

Background: Mechanisms of systemic IgE suppression by oral tolerance have been extensively studied, but less is known about oral tolerance induction in mice challenged at mucosal sites. We have previously shown in systemically challenged mice that high-dose tolerance suppressed specific but not bystander IgE. In an attempt to mimic oral tolerance in food-allergic patients, we have investigated how IgE suppression could be induced in mice sensitized orally against beta-lactoglobulin (BLG).

Induction by a lactic acid bacterium of a population of CD4(+) T cells with low proliferative capacity that produce transforming growth factor beta and interleukin-10.

We investigated whether certain strains of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) could antagonize specific T-helper functions in vitro and thus have the potential to prevent inflammatory intestinal immunopathologies. All strains tested induced various levels of both interleukin-12 (IL-12) and IL-10 in murine splenocytes. In particular, Lactobacillus paracasei (strain NCC2461) induced the highest levels of these cytokines.

[Kinetics of potassium transfer during hemodialysis].

Introduction: In order to study whether the removal of potassium in haemodialysis patients could be increased, we analyzed the kinetics of potassium transfer in the dialyzer.

Method: 40 patients were included in the study. We studied: a) in vitro potassium exchanges between erythrocytes and plasma; b) plasma and erythrocyte potassium concentrations at dialyzer input and output; c) potassium transfers into the dialysate, using plasma clearance and direct measurement in the collected dialysate and d) erythrocyte potassium concentrations at the beginning and the end of dialysis.

Case complexity and clinical outcome in diabetes mellitus. A prospective study using the INTERMED.

The aim of this study was to assess a population of patients with diabetes mellitus by means of the INTERMED, a classification system for case complexity integrating biological, psychosocial and health care related aspects of disease. The main hypothesis was that the INTERMED would identify distinct clusters of patients with different degrees of case complexity and different clinical outcomes. Patients (n=61) referred to a tertiary reference care centre were evaluated with the INTERMED and followed 9 months for HbA1c values and 6 months for health care utilisation.

Kinetics and extent of protein tyrosine kinase activation in individual T cells upon antigenic stimulation.

Using human CD4+ T-cell clones and peptide-pulsed antigen-presenting cells (APC) we measured, at the single cell level, different steps in the T-cell activation cascade. Simultaneous analysis of T-cell antigen receptor (TCR) down-regulation and interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) production shows that both the level of TCR occupancy and the amount of IFN-gamma produced by single T cells increase in an antigen dose-dependent fashion. Conversely, commitment of T cells to IFN-gamma production does not occur as soon as a defined number of TCR have been engaged, but requires the same duration of sustained signalling at low as well as at high antigen concentrations.

Purification of a dichlorophenol-indophenol oxidoreductase from rat and bovine synaptic membranes: tight complex association of a glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase isoform, TOAD64, enolase-gamma and aldolase C.

NADH-dichlorophenol-indophenol oxidoreductases (PMOs) were purified from synaptic plasma membranes or synaptic vesicles (small recycling vesicles) from both bovine and rat brains and from a neuroblastoma cell line, NB41A3. Several isoforms could be identified in purified plasma membranes and vesicles. Purification of the enzyme activity involved protein extraction with detergents, (NH4)2SO4 precipitation, chromatography under stringent conditions and native PAGE.

Effects of plasma membrane oxidoreductases on Ca2+ mobilization and protein phosphorylation in rat brain synaptosomes.

We have investigated the possible role of plasma membrane oxidoreductases in the Ca2+ export mechanisms in rat brain synaptic membranes. Ca2+ efflux in nerve terminals is controlled both by a high-affinity/low capacity Mg-dependent ATP-stimulated Ca2+ pump and by a low affinity/high capacity ATP-independent Na(+)-Ca2+ exchanger. Both Ca2+ efflux mechanisms were strongly inhibited by pyridine nucleotides, in the order NADP greater than NAD greater than NADPH greater than NADH with IC50 values of ca.