Acute transfusion reactions in the pediatric intensive care unit.

Background: Acute transfusion reactions (ATRs) are probably underdiagnosed in critically ill children because associated symptoms can frequently be attributed to the patient's underlying disease. This study was undertaken to determine the incidence, type, imputability, and severity of ATRs observed in a tertiary care pediatric intensive care unit (PICU).

Study Design And Methods: All transfusions of labile blood product administered to consecutive patients admitted to our PICU, between February 2002 and February 2004, were prospectively recorded.

Acceptable respiratory physiologic limits for children during weaning from mechanical ventilation.

Objective: The aim of this survey was to characterize the physiological limits considered appropriate during weaning from mechanical ventilation in children.

Design: Two hundred twenty-two (222) intensivists from 63 pediatric intensive care units (PICUs) were asked to provide the limits they considered acceptable for respiratory rate (RR), tidal volume (V(T)) and end-tidal CO(2) (PetCO(2)) during weaning from mechanical ventilation of a 3-month-old, a 2-year-old and a 10-year-old patient.

Setting: Pediatric intensivists working in Canada, France, Switzerland and Belgium.

Are the criteria of Tabar and Dean still relevant to radial scar?

Objective: Aschoff's center of proliferation (ACP), poses significant problems of differential diagnosis both in imagery and histology with infiltrating carcinoma. Up to now the criteria of Tabar and Dean (classical criteria) are considered as diagnostically relevant.

Material: A retrospective study of 113 cases, enabled us to study their clinical, radiological and histological aspects.

Hypothermia pediatric head injury trial: the value of a pretrial clinical evaluation phase.

Background: The utility of a pretrial clinical evaluation or run-in phase prior to conducting trials of complex interventions such as hypothermia therapy following severe traumatic brain injury in children and adolescents has not been established.

Methods: The primary objective of this study was to prospectively evaluate the ability of investigators to adhere to the clinical protocols of care including the cooling and rewarming procedures as well as management guidelines in patients with severe traumatic brain injury (Glasgow Coma Scale View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In vitro activity of novel dual action MDR anthranilamide modulators with inhibitory activity at CYP-450.

Synthesis and in vitro cytotoxicity assays of new anthranilamide MDR modulators have been performed to assess their inhibition potency of the P-glycoprotein (P-gp) transporter. The aromatic spacer group between nitrogen atoms (N1 and N2) in the known inhibitor XR9576 was replaced with a flexible alkyl chain of 2 to 6 carbon atoms in length. 6,7-Dimethoxy-1,2,3,4-tetrahydroisoquinoline and their open-chain N-methylhomoveratrylamine counterparts were shown to be potent P-gp inhibitors.

Intrachain electron transfer in conducting oligomers and polymers: the mixed valence approach.

Organic mixed valence compounds consisting of bisdiarylamino charge-bearing units with an oligothiophene bridge and oligothiophene radical cations have been compared using molecular modeling. The study has been performed with oligomers of 1 to 22 thiophene units. These two series of molecules have several properties in common, and intramolecular Single Electron Transfer (SET) in both series can be described within the same theoretical framework.

Postoperative/posttraumatic gustatory dysfunction.

Clinical taste testing in humans is far from being routinely performed in ear, nose and throat (ENT) clinics. Consequently, most reports on posttraumatic and postoperative taste disorders are case reports and mainly consist of qualitative (e.g.

Rhamnolipids are virulence factors that promote early infiltration of primary human airway epithelia by Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

The opportunistic bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa causes chronic respiratory infections in cystic fibrosis and immunocompromised individuals. Bacterial adherence to the basolateral domain of the host cells and internalization are thought to participate in P. aeruginosa pathogenicity.

[Vacuum-assisted stereotactic biopsy: experience of the regional cancer center of Caen].

Purpose: To report our experience with macrobiopsy under stereotaxy.

Materials And Methods: Retrospective study of 248 procedures in 236 patients for microcalcifications in 95% of cases. The macrobiopsies were performed under Mammotome for lesions graded ACR 3, ACR 4 and ACR 5 in 8.

Diaphragm electrical activity during expiration in mechanically ventilated infants.

The presence of diaphragm electrical activity (EAdi) during expiration is believed to be involved in the maintenance of end-expiratory lung volume (EELV) and has never been studied in intubated and mechanically ventilated infants. The aim of this study was to quantify the amplitude of diaphragm electrical activity present during expiration in mechanically ventilated infants and to measure the impact of removing positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) on this activity. We studied the EAdi in 16 ready-to-be weaned intubated infants who were breathing on their prescribed ventilator and PEEP settings.

Transient hemiageusia in cerebrovascular lateral pontine lesions.

Knowledge of human central taste pathways is largely based on textbook (anatomical dissections) and animal (electrophysiology in vivo) data. It is only recently that further functional insight into human central gustatory pathways has been achieved. Magnetic resonance imaging studies, especially selective imaging of vascular, tumoral, or inflammatory lesions in humans has made this possible.

The moral experience of parents regarding life-support decisions for their critically-ill children: a preliminary study in France.

The common paediatric critical care practice in France is for physicians (rather than parents) to maintain the ultimate responsibility for lifesupport decisions in children. Some French literature asserts that it is inappropriate for parents to bear such responsibilities because they do not have the required knowledge and should be protected from feeling culpable for such decisions. The aim of this grounded theory preliminary study was to examine the moral experience of parents of critically-ill children that required life-support decisions in France.

Incidental sonographic finding of an extracranial internal carotid artery aneurysm confirmed by CT angiography.

We report a rare case of an extracranial internal carotid artery aneurysm (EICAA) discovered incidentally by color Doppler sonography (CDUS) and confirmed by CT angiography with three-dimensional reconstructions. As both brain MRI and cerebral angiography were normal and the patient remained asymptomatic, he was neither operated on nor stented but was discharged with appropriate antiplatelet therapy. The volume of his EICAA is checked regularly by CDUS.

Modeling recognition memory using the similarity structure of natural input.

The natural input memory (NIM) model is a new model for recognition memory that operates on natural visual input. A biologically informed perceptual preprocessing method takes local samples (eye fixations) from a natural image and translates these into a feature-vector representation. During recognition, the model compares incoming preprocessed natural input to stored representations.

Noninvasive therapy with helium-oxygen for severe bronchiolitis.

Objective: To determine whether noninvasive therapy using a helium-oxygen mixture reduces the use of positive-pressure ventilation in the treatment of respiratory failure caused by severe bronchiolitis.

Study Design: This was a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial that recruited infants in 4 pediatric intensive care units (PICUs). A total of 39 nonintubated infants with severe bronchiolitis caused by respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) were randomly assigned within 8 hours of PICU admission to receive a helium-oxygen mixture (helium group) or an air-oxygen mixture (control group) through an inflatable head hood.

Basic and clinical aspects of olfaction.

Disturbances of olfaction are a common occurrence in many neurological and neurosurgical patients and their correct diagnosis might be helpful in management and enhancement of quality of life. However, olfaction is seldom checked in most neurosurgical units and the "smell bottles" are often either absent or out of date. This chapter reviews systematically recent advances in our understanding of the anatomy, physiology (olfactory coding) and measurement of olfactory function in the human.

Differences between orthonasal and retronasal olfactory functions in patients with loss of the sense of smell.

Objective: To investigate differences between orthonasal and retronasal olfaction in patients with loss of the sense of smell without taste complaints.

Design: Electrophysiological and psychophysical testing of orthonasal and retronasal olfactory functions.

Setting: Outpatient clinics.

[Neurogenic inflammation and chronic rhinosinusitis].

The nasal mucosa is one of the anatomical region which have the highest density of sensory innervation. The function of this sensory innervation is probably linked to the protection of the lower airways against inhalation of airborne particles and potentially harmful substances. Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is associated with nasal obstruction, rhinorrhea, loss of sense of smell and facial pain or headaches.

Conducting polymer electrochemical switching as an easy means for designing active plasmonic devices.

Due to the continuously increasing demand for ultimate miniaturization of electronic and photonic systems, molecular electronics and plasmonic devices are currently booming as alternative technologies because of their very promising potential in writing, reading, storing, and processing information at the nanoscale. Conducting polymers or oligomers have been proposed and used as basic building blocks in molecular and plastic electronics since the end of the 80s. Plasmonics is, on the other hand, an emerging branch of photonics which uses nanostructured materials that support surface plasmons.

Determinants of red blood cell transfusions in a pediatric critical care unit: a prospective, descriptive epidemiological study.

Objective: To determine the incidence and to characterize the determinants of red blood cell transfusions in critically ill children.

Design: Prospective, descriptive epidemiologic study.

Setting: A single-center, multidisciplinary, tertiary care level, university-affiliated, pediatric intensive care unit (PICU).

Long-term cultures of polarized airway epithelial cells from patients with cystic fibrosis.

The poor ability of respiratory epithelial cells to proliferate and differentiate in vitro into a pseudostratified mucociliated epithelium limits the general use of primary airway epithelial cell (AEC) cultures generated from patients with rare diseases, such as cystic fibrosis (CF). Here, we describe a procedure to amplify AEC isolated from nasal polyps and generate long-term cultures of the respiratory epithelium. AEC were seeded onto microporous permeable supports that carried on their undersurface a preformed feeder layer of primary human airway fibroblasts.

Evidence of an intracellular reservoir in the nasal mucosa of patients with recurrent Staphylococcus aureus rhinosinusitis.

Severe infections due to Staphylococcus aureus require prolonged therapy for cure, and relapse may occur even years after the first episode. Persistence of S. aureus may be explained, in part, by nasal carriage of S.