Prognostic indicators of improvement with therapeutic plasma exchange in pediatric demyelination.

Objectives: To determine the safety and clinical benefit of therapeutic plasma exchange (TPE) as rescue therapy in children with acute inflammatory demyelinating CNS syndromes and to identify baseline prognostic indicators of treatment improvement.

Methods: This single-center retrospective pediatric cohort included all consecutive patients admitted to our hospital over the period from 2003 to 2017 because of a steroid-refractory acute CNS event presumed to be inflammatory who required TPE. Functional status assessment to identify improvement included the following performance category scales: visual outcome, bladder control, gait, and Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS).

Enterovirus D68 infection in a cluster of children with acute flaccid myelitis, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2016.

Objective: To report a outbreak of 11 cases of acute asymmetric flaccid myelopathy due to spinal motor neuron injury.

Material And Methods: Eleven children, six male, with a mean age of 3 years presented with acute flaccid myelitis. We analyzed clinical features, etiology, neuroradiological images, treatment, and outcome.

Effect of platelet-derived growth factor receptor-alpha and -beta blockade on flow-induced neointimal formation in endothelialized baboon vascular grafts.

The growth of neointima and neointimal smooth muscle cells in baboon polytetrafluoroethylene grafts is regulated by blood flow. Because neointimal smooth muscle cells express both platelet-derived growth factor receptor-alpha and -beta (PDGFR-alpha and -beta), we designed this study to test the hypothesis that inhibiting either PDGFR-alpha or PDGFR-beta with a specific mouse/human chimeric antibody will modulate flow-induced neointimal formation. Bilateral aortoiliac grafts and distal femoral arteriovenous fistulae were placed in 17 baboons.

PDGFbeta receptor blockade inhibits intimal hyperplasia in the baboon.

Background: We have evaluated the use of a mouse/human chimeric anti-platelet-derived growth factor-beta receptor antibody in combination with heparin to inhibit intimal hyperplasia in the saphenous artery of the baboon after balloon angioplasty.

Methods And Results: The study evaluated lesion development in sequential injuries made 28 days apart. Each animal received control treatment after the first injury and antibody/heparin therapy after the second injury to the contralateral artery.

Is smooth muscle growth in primate arteries regulated by endothelial nitric oxide synthase?

Purpose: We investigated whether control of constitutive endothelial cell nitric oxide synthase (cNOS) and nitric oxide (NO) by changes in shear stress might be important for the regulation of smooth muscle cell (SMC) growth and vascular diameter.

Methods: Bilateral femoral arteriovenous fistulas were placed in baboons to increase the blood flow in the external iliac arteries. At 2 months, the fistula was ligated on one side to restore normal flow (flow switch).