Cocaine addiction and family dysfunction: a case-control study in southern Brazil.

Family-related factors play a crucial role in the onset, development, and maintenance of drug misuse and addiction. To investigate the hypothesis that families with a cocaine addicted son display more dysfunction than control families, we applied the Personal Authority in the Family System and the Self-Report Measure of Family Functioning to 67 case triads (child-father-mother) in which the son was an inpatient with a primary diagnosis of cocaine abuse or dependence and to 67 matched control triads from the community (Pelotas, Brazil) in 2000. Case children, mothers, and fathers were significantly more likely to present nuclear family triangulation than their matched control subjects.

Is paternal postpartum depression associated with maternal postpartum depression? Population-based study in Brazil.

Objective: To describe the prevalence of paternal postpartum depression (PPD) as well as its association with maternal PPD.

Method: A population-based random sample of 386 couples was assessed from the sixth to the 12th week postpartum for demographic characteristics, alcohol misuse (AUDIT) and depressive symptoms [Beck Depression Inventory (BDI)]. Logistic regression was employed to control for potential confounders.

[Prevalence of postpartum depression and associated factors].

Objective: To assess the prevalence of postpartum depression and associated factors.

Methods: The study was carried out in Pelotas, a city in the Southern region of Brazil, between October and November 2000. Mothers (n=410) were interviewed in the hospital using two questionnaires on obstetric and psychosocial data.

The 5q- syndrome and autoimmune phenomena: report of three cases.

Myelodysplastic syndrome is a clonal hematopoietic stem cell disorder characterized by ineffective hematopoiesis, peripheral cytopenias and an additional risk to evolve to acute leukemia in up to 30% of the cases. Autoimmune manifestations as vasculitis, pyoderma gangrenosum, hemolytic anemia, immune thrombocytopenia, rheumatoid arthritis as well as positive anti-nuclear factor and rheumatoid factor have been reported in 13-30% of MDS patients. The aim of this report is to present three patients with 5q- syndrome who presented different autoimmune serological and clinical phenomena and review the literature.

TGF-beta-associated enhanced susceptibility to leishmaniasis following intramuscular vaccination of mice with Leishmania amazonensis antigens.

Leishmania amazonensis and Leishmania braziliensis are the main causal agents of anergic diffuse cutaneous leishmaniasis and hyperergic mucosal leishmaniasis in man, respectively. In this work we demonstrate that intramuscular vaccination of BALB/c mice with whole antigens of L. amazonensis (LaAg) but not L.

[The role of frequency doubling perimetry in the diagnosis of glaucoma: screening in employees of a public hospital in an urban area of São Paulo].

Purpose: To study the prevalence of glaucoma in employees of a public hospital in São Paulo and to analyze the role of frequency doubling perimetry along with non-contact tonometry and direct ophthalmoscopy, in the screening for glaucoma.

Methods: 612 employees of the Central Hospital of the "Santa Casa de São Paulo" were evaluated from October 15 to 20, 2000; 438 were women and 174 men, with mean age of 45.05+/-7.

Morphological and physiological changes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae by oxidative stress from hyperbaric air.

Increase in air or oxygen pressure in microbial cell cultures can cause oxidative stress and consequently affect cell physiology and morphology. The behaviour of Saccharomyces cerevisiae grown under hyperbaric atmospheres of air and pure oxygen was studied. A limit of 1.

The T-cell anergy induced by Leishmania amazonensis antigens is related with defective antigen presentation and apoptosis.

Leishmania amazonensis is the main agent of diffuse cutaneous leishmaniasis, a disease associated with anergic immune responses. In this study we show that the crude antigen of Leishmania amazonensis (LaAg) but not L. braziliensis promastigotes (LbAg) contains substances that suppress mitogenic and spontaneous proliferative responses of T cells.

Intranasal vaccination against cutaneous leishmaniasis with a particulated leishmanial antigen or DNA encoding LACK.

We have previously demonstrated that oral delivery of a disease-promoting particulated antigen of Leishmania amazonensis (LaAg) partially protects mice against cutaneous leishmaniasis. In the present work, we sought to optimize a mucosal vaccine by using the intranasal route for delivery of different antigen preparations, including (i) LaAg, (ii) soluble recombinant p36/LACK leishmanial antigen (LACK), and (iii) plasmid DNA encoding LACK (LACK DNA). BALB/c mice that received two intranasal doses of 10 microg of LaAg and were challenged 1 week postvaccination with L.

Effect of hyperbaric stress on yeast morphology: study by automated image analysis.

The effects of hyperbaric stress on the morphology of Saccharomyces cerevisiae were studied in batch cultures under pressures between 0.1 MPa and 0.6 MPa and different gas compositions (air, oxygen, nitrogen or carbon dioxide), covering aerobic and anaerobic conditions.

[Prevalence of sedentarism and its associated factors among urban adolescents].

Objective: To evaluate the prevalence and determinants of sedentarism among adolescents living in Pelotas, State of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in Pelotas, in 2002. An anonymous, self-administered questionnaire was answered by a representative sample of 960 adolescents with ages ranging from 15 to 18 years old.

[Risk factors for small-for-gestational age births among infants in Brazil].

Objective: To assess the risk factors for small-for-gestational-age (SGA) births.

Methods: All live births occurring in the city of Pelotas, Brazil, between October and December 1993 were identified and mothers interviewed soon after delivery. Birthweight was recorded by the maternity staff.

Infection of the CNS by Scedosporium apiospermum after near drowning. Report of a fatal case and analysis of its confounding factors.

This report describes a fatal case of central nervous system pseudallescheriasis. A 32 year old white man presented with headache and meningismus 15 days after nearly drowning in a swine sewage reservoir. Computerised tomography and magnetic resonance imaging of the head revealed multiple brain granulomata, which vanished when steroid and broad spectrum antimicrobial and antifungal agents, in addition to dexamethasone, were started.

Central nervous system Aspergillus fumigatus infection after near drowning.

Aims: To report the case of a 26 year old white man, who developed chronic meningitis and intracerebral granulomata 15 days after an episode of near drowning in a swamp.

Methods: Aspergillus fumigatus was isolated from cerebrospinal fluid cultures.

Results: The patient died 70 days after the symptoms were first noticed, and seven days after a subarachnoid haemorrhage.

Growth and beta-galactosidase activity in cultures of Kluyveromyces marxianus under increased air pressure.

Aims: To investigate the effect of total air pressure raise on cell growth and intracellular beta-galactosidase activity in batch cultures of Kluyveromyces marxianus CBS 7894.

Methods And Results: A pressurized bioreactor was used for K. marxianus batch cultivation under increased air pressure from 1.

Questions about questions: new views on an old prejudice.

The belief that good analysts do not ask, and do not answer, questions is a still-living strange recommendation, transmitted throughout psychoanalytic generations. The authors have extensively reviewed electronic databases and technical texts. They found that interrogative acts are largely omitted from technical considerations, generating a prejudice that does not consider questions as proper psychoanalytic tools, and they discuss possible foundations for this belief.

Karyotype of cryopreserved bone marrow cells.

The analysis of chromosomal abnormalities is important for the study of hematological neoplastic disorders since it facilitates classification of the disease. The ability to perform chromosome analysis of cryopreserved malignant marrow or peripheral blast cells is important for retrospective studies. In the present study, we compared the karyotype of fresh bone marrow cells (20 metaphases) to that of cells stored with a simplified cryopreservation method, evaluated the effect of the use of granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) as an in vitro mitotic index stimulator, and compared the cell viability and chromosome morphology of fresh and cryopreserved cells whenever possible (sufficient metaphases for analysis).

Accessibility of selected hospitals and medical procedures by means of aerial and transit network-based measures.

Objective: This report investigates the use of linear and travelled route (transit network-based) distances in estimating the accessibility of hospitals to patients, for some selected hospital admission diagnostics.

Methods: For patients admitted to 14 public hospitals in Rio de Janeiro City, during 1996, under the ICD-9 headings "Complications of Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Puerperium" and "Disorders of the Circulatory System", average distances between the patient's district of residence and hospital of admission were calculated (both as Euclidean and as network-based distances). Data were obtained from the country's public health data processing agency.

Primary breast lymphoma: an uncommon but curable disease.

Primary malignant breast lymphoma (PBL) is a rare disease with an incidence of 0.04-0.5% of all malignant breast neoplasms.

Fed-batch cultivation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae in a hyperbaric bioreactor.

Fed-batch is the dominating mode of operation in high-cell-density cultures of Saccharomyces cerevisae in processes such as the production of baker's yeast and recombinant proteins, where the high oxygen demand of these cultures makes its supply an important and difficult task. The aim of this work was to study the use of hyperbaric air for oxygen mass transfer improvement on S. cerevisiae fed-batch cultivation.

Effect of the selective COX-2 inhibitors, celecoxib and rofecoxib in rat acute models of inflammation.

Objective: This study evaluates the action of celecoxib and rofecoxib, two selective cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitors in two acute models of inflammation, carrageenan (Cg)-induced rat pleurisy, and paw oedema formation.

Material: Male Wistar rats (N = 4-10 per group) were used. A fixed volume of PBS or carrageenan was injected into the pleural cavity or into the paw.

[Utilization of health care services in Brazil: gender, family characteristics, and social status].

Objective: To investigate the pattern of utilization of health care services by men and by women in Brazil.

Methods: We used data from the Brazilian National Household Sample Survey (Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios) carried out in 1998. Logistic regression models were developed to analyze information concerning men and women who had and who did not have restrictions in their routine activities due to health problems during the 15 days before the survey.