The International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology.

Almost half a century ago, a series of remarkable therapeutic developments occurred and were soon recognised as milestones in the history of medicine. The introduction of lithium, chlorpromazine, imipramine and the monoamine oxidase inhibitors, within a few years of each other, radically altered the prospects for treating serious psychiatric disorders. Until then, electroconvulsive therapy had been the only definitive treatment available.

A.E. Bennett Research Award 1993. Olfactory neuroblasts from Alzheimer donors: studies on APP processing and cell regulation.

Cell lines of continuously dividing human olfactory neuroblasts can be propagated using olfactory epithelium obtained from human donors at biopsy or autopsy. The expression of neuronal proteins in these cells, such as neurofilament protein and tau protein, can be increased using a combination of factors including nerve growth factor, fibroblast growth factor, interleukin 1 and interleukin 6. These cells also express aspects of human disease.

Stricter selection criteria improve the results of shunt surgery.

Between October, 1976 and December, 1982, 176 patients with full-blown liver cirrhosis were referred to us either with Acute oesophageal variceal bleeding, or after having had such a haemorrhage. Eight of these patients died of a haemorrhage that did not respond to conservative treatment, or of hepatic failure after emergency surgery. After receiving initial conservative treatment, 168 patients were classified in accordance with clinical, biochemical and haemodynamic selection criteria, particular importance being attached to the haemodynamic criteria.

[Internistic diagnosis of the parenchymatous epigastric organs (author's transl)].

Since endoscopy became part of routine diagnostic measures in epigastric diseases, less weight has been attached to x-ray examinations, although the range of application of radiological diagnosis has widened rather than narrowed. In the first place this must be ascribed to the combined diagnostic methods of endoscopic retrograde cholangio-pancreaticography (ERCP), percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography (PTC) and to a limited extent also to percutaneous transjugular cholangiography (PTJC). All three methods are typical examples of the increasing importance of teamwork between the internist engaged in gastroenterology and the radiologist.

[Rupture of postoperative adhesions and hemorrhage--a rare complication of peritoneoscopy (author's transl)].

A case report is given of a patient, who had been operated upon because of gall stones before; the gall bladder had not been removed. At a later date peritoneoscopy was planned and gas insufflated into the abdominal cavity in the usual manner; the patient did not complain about anything particular during peritoneoscopy. However adhesions apparently having formed after the earlier operation between the spleen and the abdominal wall did rupture during this procedure leading to a continously oozing hemorrhage from the spleen.