Prevalence of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy and ALMS1 Variant in Sphynx Cats in New Zealand.

Recently, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) in Sphynx cats has been associated with a variant in the gene encoding Alström syndrome protein 1 (ALMS1). The primary aims of this study were to describe the prevalence of HCM in Sphynx cats in New Zealand, and to assess the association between HCM and the ALMS1 variant in this population. In this prospective study, 55 apparently healthy Sphynx cats from registered Sphynx breeders and pet owners in New Zealand were screened by a cardiologist.

Longitudinal assessment of systolic anterior motion of the mitral valve in cats with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Background: The proportion of cats with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) that lose systolic anterior motion of the mitral valve (SAM) in the long term is unknown.

Hypothesis/objectives: Cats with HCM will lose SAM in the long term. Loss of SAM will be associated with greater age, longer scan-interval, and altered left ventricular (LV) dimensions.

Retinopathy in Greyhound dogs: Prevalence, fundoscopic, and histopathological findings.

Objectives: To determine the prevalence of retinal lesions and describe the fundoscopic findings of retinopathy in Greyhound dogs in the Manawatu/Whanganui region of New Zealand. To examine possible associations between sex, age, and racing variables with retinopathy in the study population. To describe retinal histologic findings in seven Greyhounds with retinopathy in New Zealand.

Detection of a Novel Papillomavirus Type within a Feline Cutaneous Basal Cell Carcinoma.

A 4 cm diameter exophytic mass was excised from the left flank of a 10-year-old domestic short-haired cat. Histology of the superficial aspects of the mass revealed epidermal cells arranged in nests and trabeculae while the deeper parts of the mass consisted of small round cells arranged in sheets or bundles of elongate spindle-shaped cells. A diagnosis of basal cell carcinoma (BCC) was made.

An inherited night blindness in Wiltshire sheep.

Twelve cases of adult-onset blindness were identified in a flock of 130 polled Wiltshire sheep in New Zealand over a 3-year period. Affected sheep developed night blindness between 2 and 3 years of age, which progressed to complete blindness by 4 to 5 years of age. Fundic examination findings included progressive tapetal hyperreflectivity and attenuation of retinal blood vessels.

Adipokine profiles in preeclampsia.

Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP), including preeclampsia (PE), are associated with short- and long-term maternal health complications, and obesity is a leading attributable risk factor for HDP. Yet, most women identified as obese [by body mass index (BMI) ≥ 30 kg/m] do not develop HDP, indicating limited predictability of BMI alone. In nonpregnant populations, increased visceral fat mass (VFM) is an obesity-associated phenotype increasing the risk of developing hypertension.

Wheat particle size, insoluble fibre sources and whole wheat feeding influence gizzard musculature and nutrient utilisation to different extents in broiler chickens.

A 21-day experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of wheat particle size, insoluble fibre source and whole wheat (WW) inclusion on the gizzard musculature, intestinal architecture and nutrient utilisation of broiler chickens. The following seven treatments, all in mash form, were tested: control diet using finely ground wheat (Fine); control diet using medium-ground wheat (Medium); control diet using coarsely ground wheat (Coarse); fine diet diluted with 10 g/kg lignocellulose (LC); fine diet diluted with 30 g/kg oat hulls (OH); fine diet diluted with 30 g/kg wood shavings (WS); and ground wheat in the fine diet replaced with 50 and 100 g/kg WW during the second (day 8-14) and third (day 15-21) weeks of the study respectively. Except for the LC diet, all treatments increased (p < 0.

Core curriculum case illustration: a rare case of an isolated fallopian tube torsion.

This is the 46th installment of a series that will highlight one case per publication issue from the bank of cases available online as part of the American Society of Emergency Radiology (ASER) educational resources. Our goal is to generate more interest in and use of our online materials. To view more cases online, please visit the ASER Core Curriculum and Recommendations for Study online at: http://www.

The time course of semantic and associative priming effects is different in an attentional blink task.

When two targets are presented using rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) and the interval between the targets is 200-500 ms, report of the second target is impaired, a phenomena known as the attentional blink (AB). This study examined the time course of semantic-only and associate-semantic priming effects during an AB task. Three RSVP experiments were conducted using targets that shared either a semantic-only or an associative-semantic relationship.

Parents' intellectual and emotional awareness of their child's impending death to cancer: a population-based long-term follow-up study.

Background: We aimed to study care-related determinants of when parents gain awareness of their child's impending death to cancer, and whether the duration of this awareness affects the parents' long-term morbidity.

Methods: Between August 2001 and October 2001, 449 of 561 (80%) parents who had lost a child due to any malignancy in Sweden between Jan 1, 1992, and Dec 31, 1997 (identified on the Swedish Causes of Death Register), answered a 365-item postal questionnaire designed to ascertain when, before the child's actual death, they had become intellectually and emotionally aware of the child's impending death (awareness time). The primary endpoints were intellectual awareness time (defined as time between intellectual realisation that a disease is fatal and the actual time of death) and emotional awareness time (defined as time between emotional realisation that a disease is fatal and the actual time of death).

When death appears best for the child with severe malignancy: a nationwide parental follow-up.

Background: Loss of a child to malignancy is associated with long-term morbidity among surviving parents. This study aims to identify particular sources of stress among parents of children with severe malignancy.

Methods: We attempted to contact all parents in Sweden who lost a child to cancer between 1992 and 1997.

A hierarchical step-model for causation of bias-evaluating cancer treatment with epidemiological methods.

As epidemiological methods are used increasingly to evaluate the effects of cancer treatment, guidelines for the application of such methods in clinical research settings are necessary. Towards this end, we present a hierarchical step-model for causation of bias, which depicts a real-life study as departing from a perfect setting and proceeding step-wise towards a calculated, often adjusted, effect-parameter. Within this model, a specific error (which influences the effect-measure according to one of four sets of rules) is introduced on one (and only one) of the model's four steps.