Ocular Ferning test - effect of temperature and humidity on tear Ferning patterns.

Background: The ocular ferning test is used as a diagnostic aid to evaluate patients with dry-eye disease. The ferning phenomenon is a dendritic growth form of dried tear fluid. The influence of temperature and relative humidity (rH) on the morphology of tear ferning patterns was investigated.

[Two patients with xerophthalmia].

Background: Xerophthalmia, the eye manifestation of vitamin A deficiency, is one of the main reasons of blindness in developing countries but is rare in industrial countries.

Patients: We report on 2 cases of night blindness and conjunctival and corneal xerosis because of hypovitaminosis A. One patient developed vitamin A deficiency due to short bowel syndrome resulting from gastroschisis.

Involvement of the L-arginine-nitric oxide pathway in hyperglycaemia-induced coronary artery dysfunction of isolated guinea pig hearts.

The effects of hyperglycaemia and L-arginine on flow-induced reduction of coronary artery resistance were investigated in isolated guinea pig hearts. In the presence of indomethacin, hyperglycaemia caused an increase in flow-induced vasodilatation (P < 0.05).

Elevation of D-glucose impairs coronary artery autoregulation after slight reduction of coronary flow.

Diabetes mellitus is thought to increase the susceptibility of tissue to hypoxic injury through D-glucose-induced alterations of intracellular metabolism. Therefore the effects of hyperglycaemia on coronary artery autoregulation under slight reduction of coronary flow were investigated in isolated perfused guinea-pig hearts. Under normal (10 mM) D-glucose concentrations coronary autoregulation was intact in response to a slight reduction of coronary flow (from 6 to 4.

Action of ATP on ventricular automaticity.

ATP is an effective treatment of supraventricular tachycardia when the atrioventricular (AV) node is part of the reentrant circuit. However, the lower a pace-maker in the pacemaker hierarchy, the more sensitive it is to adenosine. Therefore, we investigated the effects of ATP on ventricular automaticity in in vivo and in vitro conditions.