[Effectiveness of a long-term education program in patients with prosthetic heart valves].

Aim: The current study was aimed at assessing the effectiveness and the impact of a long-term education program, in both inpatient and outpatient treatment settings, on adherence to treatment and the quality of life 5 years after heart valve replacement.

Materials And Methods: All the patients were randomly included into two study groups. The study group patients (n=176) underwent the long-term education program in both inpatient and outpatient treatment settings.

[Morphologic characteristics of secondary tubulointerstitial nephritis in humans and in rabbit experiments].

Tubulo-stromal relationships were studied in rabbit and human kidneys in secondary tubulo-interstitial nephritis (TIN) of immune genesis to establish the species differences in the course and manifestations of this disease. TIN of rabbits was studied on the model of serum disease (13 animals) and in humans on renal biopsies from patients with mesangioproliferative GN (22 cases). The correlation of relative volumes of tubule structural elements characteristic for each species undergoes changes when pathologic process develops; new correlations are similar in both humans and rabbits, although the time of involvement of tubular part of nephron into the pathologic process is different.

[The DNA content in precancer, peripheral cancer and carcinoids of the lung (histospectrophotometric research)].

Histospectrophotometric study of DNA content shows that, at the lung periphery, oval structures with atypia, adenomatosis with atypia, dysplasia and basal cell hyperplasia with bronchial epithelium atypia should be regarded as precancerous lesions. Carcinoma in situ and bronchoalveolar carcinoma are distinguished from the foci of epithelial dysplasia by an increase of DNA content and appearance of hetero- and aneuploidy. Aneuploidy is observed in 97% peripheral lung carcinoma and is combined with a heterogeneity of cells by their DNA content.

[The extracellular matrix of peripheral lung cancer in the scar and of pneumosclerosis of different origins (the immunohistochemistry and electron microscopy of the collagens)].

Collagen types and ultrastructural features of the stroma and scar extracellular matrix in the peripheral lung carcinoma, post-tuberculosis and post-pneumonia pneumosclerosis foci, fibrosing alveolitis interstitium were studied on the material of operational and transbronchial lung biopsies. It is established that by the collagen composition the scars in the peripheral carcinoma are identical to the pneumosclerosis foci and are distinguished from the carcinoma stroma by a higher concentration of type IV and V collagens (p less than 0.05).

[The functional morphology of the thymus in systemic lupus erythematosus and its characteristics during immunodepressive and immunostimulating therapies].

Functional morphology of thymus is studied in 10 autopsy cases of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in patients of 8 to 30 years, treated with high doses of glucocorticosteroids (GCS) alone or in combination with tactivin or without immunomodulating therapy. Manifestations of SLE are interstitial thymitis and pronounced thymus parenchyma atrophy which is present regardless of therapy. In the absence of the therapy with high doses of GCS, increase of perivascular spaces of thymus lobules with the appearance in these spaces of lymphoid follicles results in the false increase of the thymus volume and weight simulating its hyperplasia.

[The immunohistochemistry of cellular oncogenes in precancer and cancer of the lung].

Operative material obtained from patients with lung cancer and precancer, carcinoids, secondary tuberculosis, chronic nonspecific diseases and pulmonary lymphosarcoma was examined immunohistochemically. Expression of the oncogenes was higher in lung carcinoma than in the foci of lung epithelium regeneration, metaplasia and dysplasia. All the oncogenes in precancer and cancer may be divided into two groups by the degree of their expression: oncogenes the activation of which occurs in the same way at certain stages of tumour progression regardless of the lung carcinoma histogenesis and oncogenes expressed at certain stages depending upon the carcinoma histogenesis.

[Characteristics of tubulo-stromal relationships in the kidneys of normal rabbits and humans].

Extraglomerular cortex and medulla structural elements of kidneys, obtained from 10 male normal rabbits and 10 human beings (8 male and 2 female), who died from accidents at the age of 16-40 years, were studied in comparison. Morphometric studies with statistical evaluation are presented in diagrams, showing the percentage correlation of structural elements of rabbit and human kidneys. It is shown that the difference in life conditions of the studied species may result in the difference of these correlations The obtained results must be taken in to account in the comparative study of pathologic processes in the human and rabbit kidneys.