Evaluation of baseline pediatric readiness of emergency departments in Manitoba, Canada.

Background: Data on the readiness of the general emergency departments (EDs) in Canada to care for children requiring emergency care are limited. Recent evidence suggests an inverse association between pediatric readiness of the general ED and mortality.

Objectives: To assess the baseline pediatric readiness of the general EDs in the province of Manitoba, Canada, to care for acutely ill and injured children.

OCT: A Modality for Identifying Stent Failure in Pediatric Patients With Angiographically Silent Coronary Arteries.

We present the case of a 16-year-old patient with anomalous left coronary artery from the left pulmonary artery requiring percutaneous coronary intervention in infancy who presented with ventricular fibrillation arrest. A coronary angiogram revealed 40% narrowing of the stent relative to the remainder of the left main coronary artery. Optical coherence tomography was performed and revealed an area stenosis of 70% relative to the native left main coronary artery.

The Comparative Study of the State of Conservation of Two Medieval Documents on Parchment from Different Historical Periods.

The paper explores the potentiality of an experimental multianalytic protocol with appropriate methodology for determining the chemical and morphostructural characteristics of two old documents on parchment support. Such a protocol can authenticate and assess the state of conservation under the influence of environmental factors during storage and archival documentation, thus advancing preventive and prophylactic measures in "treasure" deposits such as the National Archives of Romania, where these documents are kept. The work methodology consisted of three stages.

Sleep and Memory Disorders in a Patient Suffering from Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease.

Currently incurable, Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease is the most commonly inherited neurological disorder, which affects a small percentage of the population. The most common cause of CMT is the duplication of a region on the short arm of chromosome 17, which includes the gene PMP22. We report a thirty-seven-year-old man with CMT disease having sleep, memory and attention disorders characterized by brief retrograde amnesia at early age.

On-chip magnetic separation of superparamagnetic beads for integrated molecular analysis.

We have demonstrated a postprocessed complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) integrated circuit (IC) capable of on-chip magnetic separation, i.e., removing via magnetic forces the nonspecifically bound magnetic beads from the detection area on the surface of the chip.

[Optic nerve melanocytoma--associated with age related macular degeneration].

We report the case of a 73 year old patient who presented for decreased vision in his right eye, ocular examination revealed a pigmented tumour in the left optic disc (optic nerve melanocytoma). We briefly mention another case of optic nerve melanocytoma in a 6 year old, Caucasian patient.

Parathormone and calcitonin secretion in endemic goiter.

The investigations performed on 160 females of adult age with goiter and clinical signs of spasmophilia followed up the serum and urinary calcium and magnesium. The calcitonin and parathormone circulating levels were also determined. Although the levels of serum and urinary calcium and magnesium appear normal in adult subjects with simple goiter, decreased levels of the circulating parathormone were confirmed in most cases.

Late hypothyroidism following subacute thyroiditis.

The authors followed up the incidence of permanent hypothyroidism in 35 patients with subacute thyroiditis (SAT) in their past history. The investigations were made one to four years after the acute episode. Ten of these presented repeated recurrences despite the therapy with glucocorticoids.

Calcitonin secretion in thyroid insufficiency.

The level of circulating calcitonin was followed up in 30 patients with severe hypothyroidism, diagnosed clinically and by laboratory examinations. Four of the patients under study had goiter. The complex investigation of phosphorus-calcium metabolism, including radioimmunoassay of calcitonin was made under basal conditions and after calcium loading.

Calcitonin secretion in hyperthyroidism.

The level of circulatory calcitonin was determined by the RIA method in 45 hyperthyroid patients in evolution, before and after calcium stimulation or after pentagastrin injection. The basal calcitonin secretion was increased in only 7 of the 45 patients studied, exceeding 500 pg/ml. After a slow calcium loading the mean of calcitonin increased, but with variable individual values.

Reactivity to calcitonin after ovariectomy.

The hypocalcemic response to calcitonin injected in female rats disappeared after their castration. The substitution treatment with estrogens does no allow reestablishment of the hypocalcemic effect obtained in intact animals, a fact that lays stress on the role of the whole ovarian secretion in maintaining a normal response to calcitonin. The response of castrated animals to calcitonin calls attention to the conditional role of estrogens in validating the osteoprotecting effect of calcitonin.

Skeletal calcium retention in hyperthyroidism and in vitro calcitonin inactivation.

Studies on patients with severe hyperthyroidism revealed an increased skeletal avidity for calcium, expressed in terms of net retention, after a three-hour i.v. load of 10mg Ca/kg body weight.

Thyroparathyroid conditioning of hydrocortisone and glucagon-induced hypocalcemic effect in rats.

A single dose of 2.5 mg hydrocortisone induced hypocalcemia in both intact and parathyroidectomized rats. This effect disappeared in the thyroparathyroidectomized group and did not reappear after the substitution with parathormone.