[Determination of cardiac output by thoracic electric impedance: comparison with thermodilution].

When an alternating current of high frequency is applied to the thorax, the first derivative of the impedance (dZ/dt) is affected by the cardiac cycle, resulting in a characteristic wave form. The maximum negative of this wave occurring during systole together with the length of ejection time (VET), the blood resistivity, the basal impedance (ZO) and the distance between the inner detecting electrodes (L) makes it possible to calculate stroke volume (SV) and related parameters, as cardiac output (CO) and cardiac index (Cl) by a formula developed by Kubicek. Thoracic electrical impedance has been proposed as a non invasive technique to evaluate cardiac emodinamics.

[Quantification of gastrin-producing cells (G cells) in chronic gastritis].

The gastrin-producing G-cells of the antropyloric mucosa are affected by a variety of disorders. By immunoperoxidase methods, employing a specific anti-gastrin I and II antibody, we demonstrated G cells in antropyloric biopsies of 15 patients with chronic gastritis, 6 of them with gastric ulcer and 1 with duodenal ulcer disease. As controls we studied 5 biopsies of histologically normal antropyloric mucosa.