Appendectomy. Improving care through quality improvement.

Objective: To evaluate the practice of appendectomy in Department of Defense hospitals worldwide in a large-scale quality improvement initiative.

Design: Case series study.

Population And Setting: A total of 4950 consecutive nonincidental appendectomies performed in 147 Department of Defense hospitals worldwide during a 12-month period ending January 31, 1993.

Recurrent hyperparathyroidism from benign neoplastic seeding: a review with recommendations for management.

Benign neoplastic seeding represents a rare cause of hyperparathyroidism found at parathyroid reoperations. It consists of pathologically benign neoplastic parathyroid tissue scattered throughout a previous parathyroid surgical site. We describe a case of recurrent and then persistent hyperparathyroidism occurring in a patient during an 18-year period.

Analysis of human TSH receptor gene and RNA transcripts in patients with thyroid disorders.

Human TSH receptor (hTSH-R) gene and RNA transcripts were analyzed by Southern and Northern blots in patients with various thyroid disorders, and in tissue cell lines. A 1.4 Kb cDNA encoding the extracellular human TSH-R domain was used as a probe.

Thyrotropin modulation of epidermal growth factor (EGF) binding to receptors on cultured thyroid cells.

Previous studies had shown that epidermal growth factor (EGF) will stimulate growth of cultured thyroid cells in vitro, and TSH will stimulate total assayable EGF receptor in cultured porcine thyroid cells. In this study, we report the effect of TSH on EGF binding to human thyroid cells. Addition of bTSH (1 mU/mL) in binding buffer during receptor assay stimulated specific EGF binding to cells, with an increase of 44% observed over the control after 1 h incubation at 37 degrees C.

Thyrotropin modulates receptor-mediated processing of the atrial natriuretic peptide receptor in cultured thyroid cells.

In a prior study of atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) binding to cultured thyroid cells, we reported that at 4 C, more than 95% of bound ANP is recovered on cell membranes, with negligible ANP internalization observed. Since ANP binding was inhibited by TSH, we have further studied TSH effects on postbinding ANP processing to determine whether this phenomenon reflects enhanced endocytosis of the ANP-receptor complex. An ANP chase study was initiated by binding [125I] ANP to thyroid cells at 4 C for 2 h, followed by incubation at 37 C.