[Cervical necrotizing fasciitis:clinicopathological aspects].

Introduction: Necrotising fasciitis is a potentially fatal fulminant infection of the subcutaneous tissues.

Methods: Our series comprised 15 patients with severe necrotising fasciitis during a 6-year period (1994-1999) at the surgical and ENT department of the Cantonal Hospital in Lucerne.

Results: In 4 cases, the necrotising infection occurred in the head and neck, beginning with a mastoiditis, pharyngitis, tongue swelling and infection of the upper eyelid.

[Predictive value of nocturnal pulse oximetry in sleep apnea screening].

The monitoring of overnight oxygen saturation is widely used for sleep apnoea screening. The point of this screening has been questioned as a wide range of sensitivity has been reported in the literature. In a prospective study 70 subjects presenting with a possible sleep apnoea-hypopnoea syndrome had overnight oximetry followed by polysomnography 2 to 4 months later.

Relationship between cytochrome P-450 induction by rifampicin, hepatic volume and portal blood flow in man.

Objective: Induction of hepatic cytochrome P-450-dependent oxidative metabolism is related to an almost identical increase (30%) in both the liver weight and portal blood flow in animals. In humans by contrast, an increased liver blood flow (44%) but no significant increase in liver volume has been reported.

Design: Therefore, we studied prospectively the relationship between P-450 induction by rifampicin, hepatic volume and portal blood flow in 10 healthy volunteers.

Size exclusion chromatography for extraction of serum bile acids.

A major problem in the measurement of serum bile acids is their quantitative extraction from the high molecular protein matrix. In our hands, the standard techniques of adsorption and reversed-phase chromatography have yielded incomplete recovery for different bile acids (33-93%) and poor reproducibility. In contrast, with the novel extraction procedure of size exclusion chromatography, recovery was nearly quantitative (75-104%) and reproducibility was satisfactory.

Metabolic zonation in thioacetamide-induced liver cirrhosis.

After TAA administration to rats a central part may be distinguished histochemically from a marginal part in most of the cirrhotic nodules. The centre is characterized by a high glycogen content and by high activity of phosphorylase, G6Pase and SDH; the maxima of which are situated around the larger blood vessels. The vasculatory periphery, however, shows moderate G6PDH-activity.