[The thoracoscopic use of the CO2 laser in the combined treatment of pleural empyema].

A new method for treating acute pneumothorax with a bronchopleural fistula was experimentally developed and clinically tested. It is based on thoracoscopic use of CO2 laser radiation. The laser beam energy is employed for evaporation of necrotic tissues in the area of pulmonary destruction, "welding" of the bronchopulmonary fistulae, and general irradiation of the empyema cavity with a defocused beam.

[Morphological and immunological comparisons in epilepsy].

Morphological and immunological assays were employed to examine 18 epileptic patients and 40 Krushinskiĭ-Molodkina rats undergoing subconvulsive and convulsive acoustic stimulations. After multiple audiogenic epileptiform convulsive fits the epileptogenic areas of the brain of epileptic patients (biopsy material) and the neocortex of the sensorimotor area, amygdaloid complex and hippocampus of rats manifested vascular alterations in the form of chronic or subacute vasculitis. The changes revealed in the ratio of B and T lymphocytes in the peripheral blood of the epileptic patients in combination with pronounced stimulation of cellular and humoral immunity responses to antigens of homologous and autologous brain extracts, more well-defined in marked inflammatory process, may attest to the immune genesis of endo- and perivasculitis.

[A new approach to the creation of heart valve xenograft bioprostheses resistant to calcification].

The calcium binding activity of xenograft tissue in stages of modification with papain, diphosphonates, and heparin was studied on a model of accelerated calcification in subcutaneous implantation of cusps of pig's aortic bioprostheses to 42 rats. In immobilization of 3-amino-1-oxypropylidendiphosphonic acid and xydiphon the amount of calcium in the implants reduced 50 times as compared to the control. The first stage of ion-covalent heparin immobilization--treatment with albumin--increased the calcium-binding activity of the biomaterial, but subsequent heparinization reduced again the calcium content in the cusp tissue to the level attained in the stage of diphosphonate immobilization.