Asthma, IgE and environment in northern Nigeria.

Sixty-four asthmatics and seventy-five control subjects from rural villages and various urban settings have been investigated. Rural asthmatics had a significantly higher IgE level than both urban asthmatics and village controls. Urban asthmatics had similar IgE levels to urban controls.

The importance of finger clubbing in pulmonary tuberculosis.

Finger clubbing was observed in 21% of 70 adult Nigerian patients presenting with pulmonary tuberculosis. These patients had a significantly higher incidence of haemoptysis and they also showed a significantly lower body weight and serum albumin than those without clubbing. Their chest x-rays revealed larger cavities and at 2 months the mortality of the patients with finger clubbing (40%) was very much higher than of those without (5.

Tube leukocyte adherence inhibition (LAI) assay in gastrointestinal (GIT) cancer.

Tumor-specific immunity to carcinoma of the colon, pancreas and stomach was assayed by tube LAI. Cancers of the colon, pancreas and stomach, were shown to possess organ-type specific neoantigens. In 115 patients with colon cancer, 100%, 75%, 61% with Dukes' A, B and C cancer were LAI positive, respectively.

Joint effusions after kidney transplantation.

Thirty-seven consecutive renal transplant recipients were studied prospectively for joint disease. Six developed arthralgias while corticosteroid doses were being lowered. Eleven patients (30%) developed knee effusions at a mean interval of 10 days following transplantation.

Single injection treatment of meningococcal meningitis. 2. Long-acting chloramphenicol.

A single injection of a long-acting oily preparation of chloramphenicol (Tifomycine) was compared with a five-day course of crystalline and procaine penicillin in the treatment of 131 adult patients with meningococcal meningitis. The clinical response to treatment was similar in the two groups of patients. Serial lumbar punctures showed a parallel fall in CSF cell count, protein and lactate and all posttreatment cultures were sterile.

Single injection treatment of meningococcal meningitis. 1. Long-acting penicillin.

A single injection of a long-acting preparation of penicillin (Triplopen) was compared with a five-day course of crystalline and procaine penicillin in the treatment of meningococcal meningitis. The clinical response of patients treated with Triplopen was very similar to that of patients treated with crystalline penicillin and much more convenient to administer. However, four patients treated with Triplopen had a positive CSF culture 48 or 72 hours after their injection.

An epidemic of meningococcal infection at Zaria, Northern Nigeria. 2. The changing clinical pattern.

1,003 patients with meningococcal disease admitted to a single hospital during the course of a three-month epidemic were studied. A progressive decline in mortality, especially among patients with acute meningococcaemia, and a falling incidence of systemic and severe neurological complications among patients with meningitis were observed. It is suggested that the virulence of the causative group A meningococcus declined as the epidemic progressed.

An epidemic of meningococcal infection at Zaria, Northern Nigeria. 1. General epidemiological features.

In 1977 Zaria, in Northern Nigeria, was affected by a severe epidemic of group A meningococcal infection, 1,257 patients being admitted to hospital with the disease during a three-month period. The epidemic started towards the end of the dry season when it was hot, dry and dusty and finished shortly after the onset of the rains. The over-all attack rate was 3.

A study of false positive and negative responses in the tube leucocyte adherence inhibition (tube LAI) assay.

A panel of 5 different breast-cancer and 2 other cancer extracts was used to clarify the false-negative responses in patients with Stage I and II breast cancer and the false-positive responses in control subjects. Most patients with Stage I and II breast cancer who had an initially negative LAI response were positive when tested against the panel. The false negatives occurred because of (1) the experimental errors of the assay; (2) changes in the antigenic strength of the extracts; (3) antigenic heterogeneity of a few tumours and (4) lack of tumour-specific reactivity of the host.

The natural history of antitumour immunity in human breast cancer assayed by tube leucocyte adherence inhibition.

The specificity of the tube LAI in breast cancer was examined in a study with coded samples of PBL. In addition, 64 patients with breast cancer had their LAI reactivity monitored and correlated with their clinical status for up to 3 years after mastectomy. When patients were assayed by tube LAI, 83, 72, and 29% with Stage I, and II and III breast cancer respectively were positive.

Effects of pressure treatment on the ultrastructure of striated muscle.

Pre- and post-rigor sheep semimembranosus muscles were subjected to a hydrostatic pressure of 100 meganewtons/m(2) at 25°C. The ultrastructure of the muscle fibres was compared with that of non pressure-treated samples. A conspicuous feature of pressure-treated post-rigor samples was the absence of the M-band in the central region of the A-band.

Pulmonary and pleural lesions in rheumatoid disease.

Lung and pleural involvement in rheumatoid disease is reviewed and discussed. Attention is drawn to the male preponderance, to the frequency with which lung infections occur in rheumatoid patients and to some problems posed in them by infection with mycobacteria. Pleural effusion, pulmonary nodules and fibrosing alveolitis are familiar in association with rheumatoid arthritis.

Use of the phenolsulphonphthalein dye test for fallopian tube patency in cattle.

Results of preliminary investigations of fallopian tube patency in cattle using a method based on intrauterine instillation of PSP dye, and detection of the dye in the urine, suggest that this test can provide a useful diagnostic aid in cases of bilateral occlusion. In such cases PSP dye is not evident in the urine two hours later. In normal animals dye is present within 30 minutes.

Protective effect of dietary fibre against chemically induced bowel tumours in rats.

101 rats were fed one of four diets containing graded amounts of dietary fibre. Subcutaeous dimethylhydrazine (D.M.

Thermal sensitivity in lichens.

Lichens are believed to be extremely resistant to high-temperature stress when desiccated. Results from a reexamination of this concept indicate that some air-dry lichen thalli can be extremely sensitive to even moderate levels of heat stress whereas others exhibit a considerable degree of heat resistance. These differential levels of thermal resistance correlate exactly with the ecology of these populations.

Effect of restraint on the thermal transitions of tendon.

Sheep tendon samples that had been given a heat treatment in 0·9% sodium chloride solution at temperatures above their normal shrinkage temperature (ST) were examined by differential scanning calorimetry. If the tendon was not restrained from shrinkage during the heat treatment, no endothermic transition in the region of 60°C was subsequently detected by calorimetry. If it was restrained an endothermic transition was then detected, the magnitude of which was inversely related to the shrinkage allowed to occur during heat treatment.

Leucocyte adherence inhibition for detecting specific tumour immunity in early pancreatic cancer.

Tumour-specific immunity to pancreatic tumour antigens, assayed by an automated tube leucocyte-adherence inhibition assay (L.A.I.

Antihypertensive therapy in patients above age 60. Third interim report of the European Working Party on High blood pressure in Elderly (EWPHE).

Three hundred forty nine hypertensive patients above the age of 60 have entered the double-blind multicentre trial of the European Working Party on High blood pressure in the Elderly (EWPHE). After stratification and randomisation half were treated with one or two capsules containing 25 mg hydrochlorothiazide and 50 mg triamterene and if blood pressure control was insufficient methyldopa was added up to 2 g daily; the other half received matching placebo. No significant differences between the groups were present prior to randomisation.