A quality assurance system based on ISO standards: experience in a radiotherapy department.

The European radiotherapy society has for many years had a great interest in quality assurance. The EORTC radiotherapy group has put enormous effort into its quality assurance programmes. However, besides programmes for dosimetry and guide-lines for infrastructure, the organisation of a department should also be subject to a quality assurance system.

4-[123I]iodospiperone as a ligand for dopamine DA receptors: in vitro and in vivo experiments in a rat model.

Radioiodinated spiperone is of interest for dopamine (DA) receptor studies in the living human brain by single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). Stimulated by data obtained with [11C]-N-methyl-spiperone we synthesized 4-[123I]iodospiperone and investigated the in vitro binding characteristics of this ligand to the striatal membrane of the rat and the in vivo distribution over various rat brain regions. The in vitro binding experiments showed that this radioligand displays about 10 times less affinity for the DA receptor than spiperone and specific binding, as shown with [3H]spiperone, was not observed.

Hereditary cerebral hemorrhage with amyloidosis-Dutch type: a study of fibrinolysis.

In view of reported associations between increased bleeding tendency and systemically decreased alpha 2-antiplasmin in patients with systemic amyloid deposition we studied alpha 2-antiplasmin, fibrinogen, C-reactive protein and blood levels of locally produced endothelial hemostasis factors in the acute and quiescent phase in 16 patients with hereditary cerebral hemorrhage with amyloidosis-Dutch type (HCHWA-D). None of the factors measured in the quiescent phase of the disease was abnormal. In the acute phase, shortly after a stroke, only factor VIII:Ag was evidently elevated.

Diurnal variation of essential and physiological tremor.

Evaluations were made of the diurnal variations of tremor power at rest, after fatigue and after mass loading, and plasma norepinephrine in patients with familial essential tremor and normal subjects. Diurnal tremor power rhythms for both essential and physiological tremor pursued identical temporal profiles. Plasma norepinephrine levels followed a congruent diurnal pattern with later peak values than the peak values of tremor power.

The interpretation of dysprosody in patients with Parkinson's disease.

Prosodic features in the speech production of 21 patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease were tested. The appreciation of vocal and facial expression was also examined in the same patients. Significant intergroup differences were found in the prosody production tasks but, in contrast to previous results, not in the receptive tasks on the recognition and appreciation of prosody and of facial expression.