Heparin use in continuous renal replacement procedures: the struggle between filter coagulation and patient hemorrhage.

Heparin is the most widely used anticoagulant in continuous renal replacement procedures but little is known about the balance between filter coagulation and patient hemorrhage during treatment. Filter survival and hemorrhagic complications during 240 filter periods in 78 critically ill patients, treated with continuous arteriovenous hemofiltration and hemodiafiltration, were studied for this article. The crude incidence of filter coagulation was 17.

[Early coronary heart disease together with tyoe II diabetes mellitus in persons of Hindustani origin].

Objective: To investigate the association between early coronary heart disease and non insulin dependent diabetes mellitus in South Asian patients in the Netherlands, a homogeneous population which descends from Indian immigrants to Surinam in the late nineteenth century.

Design: Case control study.

Setting: University hospital Leiden.

Hemisphere-specific treatment of dyslexia subtypes: better reading with anxiety-laden words?

Twenty children (12 boys, 8 girls; mean age = 10.4 years) with P-type dyslexia (accurate but slow and fragmented reading) and 20 children (12 boys, 8 girls; mean age = 10.3 years) with L-type dyslexia (hurried, inaccurate reading) were treated with visual hemisphere-specific stimulation employing the HEMSTIM computer program.

[Nitric oxide to combat pulmonary hypertension in an infant following heart surgery for septum defect].

A 5-month-old female infant with Down syndrome underwent surgical repair of a complete atrioventricular septal defect and a patent ductus arteriosus. The postoperative course was complicated by life-threatening pulmonary hypertensive crises which did not respond to conventional vasodilating therapy. Nitric oxide inhalation resulted in rapid decrease in pulmonary artery pressure and improvement of haemodynamics and oxygenation without causing any untoward side effects.

[A patient with pulmonary edema following use of beta-sympathomimetics (tocolytic agents)].

During her pregnancy (29 weeks) a 29-year-old woman complained of pain in the right upper quadrant of her abdomen. Gallbladder stones were demonstrated by ultrasonography. Because of recurrent pain attacks cholecystectomy was performed.

Comparison of four different cyclosporine immunoassays in heart and kidney transplant recipients.

Four different immunoassays were used to measure cyclosporine A (CsA) plasma (20 degrees C) levels in heart and kidney transplant recipients. Two radioimmunoassays (RIAs) (Sandimmune and Cyclotrac) and the fluorescence polarization immunoassay (FPIA) were based on polyclonal antibodies, whereas the fourth (Cyclotrac-SP) used a CsA-specific mouse monoclonal antibody. We found considerable differences in measured CsA concentrations, which were dependent on the method used and the clinical situation of the patient.

Incest victims: inadequate help by professionals.

Two surveys studied the inadequacies of professional assistance given to incest victims. In the investigation 130 professionals and 50 adult women victimized as children were interviewed. With respect to young, recent victims, the assistance given was hampered by institutional distrust, the inability of individual professionals to stop the ongoing incest, as well as the frequent breaking off of contact by the young girls themselves.

The spot-ELISA: a sensitive in vitro method to study the immune response to hepatitis B surface antigen.

We present our experience with a new sensitive in vitro method for the study of the immune response to hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg). This immunoenzymatic technique, called spot-ELISA, detects specific immunoglobulin production (e.g.

Sensorineural hearing loss in adult onset Still's disease.

A 26 year old man with a nine year history of adult onset Still's disease (AOSD) developed sensorineural hearing loss during an exacerbation of his disease. This complication has not previously been described in association with adult onset Still's disease. He responded favourably to steroid treatment.

Interconversion of active and inactive 30 S ribosomal subunits is accompanied by a conformational change in the decoding region of 16 S rRNA.

Zamir, Elson and their co-workers have shown that 30 S ribosomal subunits are reversibly inactivated by depletion of monovalent or divalent cations. We have re-investigated the conformation of 16 S rRNA in the active and inactive forms of the 30 S subunit, using a strategy that is designed to eliminate reversible ion-dependent conformational effects that are unrelated to the heat-dependent Zamir-Elson transition. A combination of structure-specific chemical probes enables us to monitor the accessibility of pyrimidines at N-3 and purines at N-1 and N-7.

Chemical probing of conformation in large RNA molecules. Analysis of 16 S ribosomal RNA using diethylpyrocarbonate.

Peattie & Gilbert (1980) have described an accurate and rapid gel method for assessing conformation of individual nucleotides in RNA, based on chemical modification of bases and aniline-induced strand scission. In order to extend this approach to analysis of large RNA molecules, we introduce the use of hybridization of modified RNA with DNA restriction fragments to generate RNA fragments of defined length. In principle, this permits chemical probing of conformation at any position of any RNA molecule for which a cloned DNA coding sequence is available.