Current Approach to the Evaluation and Management of Hair-Thread Tourniquets.

Hair-thread tourniquet syndrome is a rare, painful condition that occurs when a strand of hair or thread becomes wrapped around toes, fingers, or other appendages. This causes focal edema, which eventually reduces arterial blood flow and can lead to ischemia and necrosis. A thorough physical examination and assessment of risk factors are important.

Gastric Outlet Obstruction due to Gastrointestinal Amyloidosis.

A 64- year-old man with smoldering myeloma presented to the hospital for nausea, vomiting, and PO intolerance. Abdominal CT demonstrated massive gastric distention and collapsed proximal duodenum consistent with gastric outlet obstruction (GOO). Esophagogastroduodenoscopy demonstrated pyloric edema.

Variability of the pharyngeal phase of swallow in the cat.

Objective: The pharyngeal phase of swallow has been thought to be a stereotypical motor behavior.

Study Design: This is a prospective, preclinical, hypothesis driven, one group by three-task design.

Methods: We sought to compare the effects of pharyngeal swabbing, water only, and water plus punctate mechanical stimulation on the spatiotemporal features of the pharyngeal phase of swallow in the cat.

Inhibition of type I procollagen synthesis by damaged collagen in photoaged skin and by collagenase-degraded collagen in vitro.

Type I and type III procollagen are reduced in photodamaged human skin. This reduction could result from increased degradation by metalloproteinases and/or from reduced procollagen synthesis. In the present study, we investigated type I procollagen production in photodamaged and sun-protected human skin.

Treatment of non-small cell lung cancer with external beam radiotherapy and high dose rate brachytherapy.

Between August 1985 and September 1989, 62 patients with medically inoperable or surgically unresectable, non-small cell lung cancer were treated with both external beam radiotherapy and high dose rate bronchial brachytherapy. Treatment consisted of external beam radiotherapy (5000-6000 cGy in 5-6 1/2 weeks) and weekly high dose rate bronchial brachytherapy (three to five fractions, 500 cGy at 1 cm from the source) delivered either concurrently or sequentially. Median survival for all patients was 13 months (m).

Technical costs and reimbursement. An AFROC (Association of Freestanding Radiation Oncology Centers) survey.

Based upon this survey, the technical cost per RVU is $16.87 in freestanding radiation oncology centers. A 47% increase in technical reimbursement is needed in order to cover technical radiation oncology costs.

An intradepartmental teaching effort at a medical university.

Over a period of four years, 693 third-year medical students were offered the opportunity to receive half of their required internal medicine clerkship clinical experience by rotating on a well-established family medicine inpatient service in a university hospital. This learning experience was designed and evaluated by the physician and behavioral science faculty of the department of family medicine. The family medicine inpatient experience provided the student with a greater number of individual patient encounters and a greater variety of clinical problems than an internal medicine experience.

Abnormal liver-spleen scan associated with hyperviscosity syndrome.

A patient with hyperviscosity syndrome was noted to have an abnormal liver radionuclide scan. Ultrasound and normalization of the liver scan after plasmapheresis confirmed the non-neoplastic nature of the patchy labeling defects. This case suggests a new cause for labeling abnormalities on liver radionuclide scans in patients with a syndrome where liver biopsies would be unusually hazardous.

Mailed thermoluminescent dosimetry reviews in radiation therapy.

The six Centers for Radiological Physics performed periodic thermoluminescent dosimetry (TLD) reviews for photon beams at 276 facilities across the country. The purpose of the reviews and the techniques in use are briefly described. Results from 2413 mailed reviews of megavoltage units indicate that, in 92% of the reviews, a specified dose was delivered within +/- 5% of the TLD-measured dose.