Is smoking linked to positive symptoms in acutely ill psychiatric patients?

Background: The self-medication hypothesis is commonly put forward to explain the high prevalence of smoking in psychiatric patients. However, studies supporting the self-medication hypothesis have most often been carried out on chronic patients stabilized by antipsychotics.

Aim: Given that antipsychotics tend to erase psychiatric symptoms, the present study was undertaken on acutely ill patients usually receiving no medications, or on whom medications are ineffective.

Comparison of self-reports and biological measures for alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drugs consumption in psychiatric inpatients.

Background: Asking psychiatric in-patients about their drug consumption is unlikely to yield reliable results, particularly where alcohol and illicit drug use is involved. The main aim of this study was to compare spontaneous self-reports of drug use in hospitalized psychiatric patients to biological measures of same. A secondary aim was to determine which personal factors were associated with the use of tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs as indicated by these biological measures.

Elastin gene expression in benign prostatic hyperplasia.

Background: Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is mainly a stromal process, showing an increased ratio of stromal to epithelial elements, a collagen type III downregulation, and a collagen types I and IV upregulation. Little is known about elastin gene expression in BPH tissues due to difficulties related to extensive alternative splicing of the elastin gene. Therefore, we analyzed and quantified elastin gene expression in BPH.

Decreased elastin gene expression in noncompliant human bladder tissue: a competitive reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction analysis.

Purpose: In low capacity noncompliant fibrotic bladders, as seen in patients with myelomeningocele, elevated storage pressures ultimately can lead to renal damage. Earlier studies have described an increased deposition of extracellular matrix protein, especially type III collagen, in the detrusor muscle. We analyzed elastin gene expression and quantified elastin gene alteration in the obstructed bladder, correlating urodynamically measured compliance with elastin messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) concentration.

Type III collagen messenger RNA is modulated in non-compliant human bladder tissue.

Purpose: Previous studies have demonstrated that the non-compliant bladder is characterized histologically by an increased deposition of extracellular matrix protein, especially type III collagen, in the muscle wall. We sought to determine if an increased tissue level of type III collagen messenger RNA (mRNA) parallels the observed increase in protein expression.

Materials And Methods: Using a reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) quantitative technique we measured and compared the bladder tissue concentration of type III collagen mRNA between an experimental group of patients (n = 7) with urodynamically proven non-compliant bladders (< 12 cc/cm.

Radical retropubic prostatectomy for localized carcinoma of the prostate in a large metropolitan hospital: changing trends over a 10-year period (1984-1994). Dallas Outcomes Research Group for Urological Disorders.

Objectives: To analyze changing trends in the surgical treatment for localized carcinoma of the prostate in a large metropolitan community hospital over a 10-year period from 1984 to 1994.

Methods: The records of all 428 patients who underwent radical prostatectomy for localized carcinoma of the prostate from January 1, 1984, to January 1, 1994, at a large metropolitan community hospital (Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas, Tex) were retrieved and data abstracted in a predefined computerized database by a urology resident who was not part of the patient's surgical team. The abstracted data included attending surgeon, date of surgery, patient's age, clinical stage at presentation and pathologic stage, prostate-specific antigen (PSA), perioperative events, such as duration of surgery, blood loss, transfusion, duration of hospital stay, comorbidities according to the Charlson comorbidity index, and others.

[Immunoscintigraphy, an aid to the oncologist--the Rennes experience in using anti-CEA, anti-CA 19.9 monoclonal antibodies and radiolabelled OC-125].

Immunoscintigraphy is steadily asserting itself as a valuable method in the localization of malignant tumours, alongside other imaging techniques. A monoclonal antibody specific to one or several tumour cell lines is used. The antibody is labelled with a gamma emitter radioisotope and so that it can be detected in vivo.

Adherence properties of hairy cells.

The Hairy Cells (HC) from four patients with Hairy Cell Leukemia (HCL) were studied. These cells exhibited membrane properties of B-lymphocytes; quantitation of surface membrane immunoglobulins by the peroxidase labeled antibody technique showed an average number of 20,000 to 40,000 immunoglobulin molecules per marked cell. Observations by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed that HC have a great capacity to adhere quickly to glass coverslips, to phagocytose latex particles, and to resist trypsin treatment.

[Quantitation of myelofibrosis in blood diseases by electronic image analysis (author's transl)].

Normal and pathologic reticulin networks colored black by silver nitrate can be automatically quantitated by electronic image analysis. By using this technique, different parameters can be obtained, such as the average density, the surface of network meshes, the thickness of the fibers, the complexity of the reticulum, and the heterogeneity of the myelofibrosis distribution. All of these parameters were obtained in 83 osteomedullar biopsies of blood diseases (primary splenomegaly, chronic myeloid leukemia, polycythermia vera, acute leukemia, and aplastic anemia).

[Hodgkin's disease: study of delayed hypersensitivity of 64 non treated patients. Value of epicutaneous test using croton oil].

Cellular immunity in 64 patients with Hodgkin's disease was studied during diagnosis before any treatment. The functional deficiency of the thymodependent lymphocyte was demonstrated in vivo by skin tests and, in vitro, by the test of inhibition of leucocyte migration to phytohemagglutininin and spontaneous rosette formation, to sheep red cells. This deficiency correlates with the clinical spread and the histological severity.