11C-mHED for PET / CT: principles of synthesis, methodology and first clinical applications.

Alterations of the cardiac autonomic nervous system play an important role in the pathway of many heart diseases. Nuclear imaging tools have been demonstrated to be useful for global and regional assessment of myocardial innervation. We used (11)C-meta-hydroxy-ephedrine ((11)C-mHED), a catecholamine analogue, as a radiotracer usable with a PET/CT scanner to study the cardiac sympathetic system.

Distributing insecticide-treated bednets during measles vaccination: a low-cost means of achieving high and equitable coverage.

Objective: To achieve high and equitable coverage of insecticide-treated bednets by integrating their distribution into a measles vaccination campaign.

Methods: In December 2002 in the Lawra district in Ghana, a measles vaccination campaign lasting 1 week targeted all children aged 9 months-15 years. Families with one or more children less than five years old were targeted to receive a free insecticide-treated bednet.

Spontaneous cholelithiasis in sheep: prevalence survey and analysis of gallstones and bile.

In an abattoir survey of the consecutive series of 206 sheep at a local slaughterhouse, gallstones (concretions with a diameter equal to or greater than 1 mm) were found in the gall bladder of 24 animals. There were stones in 19 out of 146 adult sheep and in 5 out of 60 lambs, with the higher frequency in the male sex in both groups. Qualitative analysis of the stones showed that all of them were pigment (bilirubin) stones.