Essential metalloelement chelates facilitate repair of radiation injury.

Treatment with essential metalloelement (Cu, Fe, Mn, and Zn) chelates or combinations of them before and/or after radiation injury is a useful approach to overcoming radiation injury. No other agents are known to increase survival when they are used to treat after irradiation, in a radiorecovery treatment paradigm. These chelates may be useful in facilitating de novo syntheses of essential metalloelement-dependent enzymes required to repair radiation injury.

Prion diseases: copper deficiency states associated with impaired nitrogen monoxide or carbon monoxide transduction and translocation.

Literature concerning prion diseases and Cu metabolism was examined to determine merits of various suggestions concerning the relationship between these diseases and altered Cu metabolism. There are a number of recent suggestions that the normal non-pathogenic form of the prion protein (PrP(C)) contains Cu while the abnormal pathogenic form of this protein, PrP(SC), lacks Cu. Results of experiments showing oxidant sensitivity in the presence of ionically bonded Cu and millimolar concentrations of hydrogen peroxide were found to lack relevance.

Chronic indomethacin administration blocks increased body temperature after burn injury in rats.

This study investigates the hypothesis that continuous administration of indomethacin (a cyclo-oxygenase inhibitor) will chronically reduce body temperature (TB) in burned rats (i.e., modulate "true" fever).

Significance of p53 overexpression in urinary bladder transitional cell carcinoma in situ before and after bacillus Calmette-Guérin treatment.

Objectives: Overexpression of p53, normally secondary to gene mutation, in invasive uroepithelial neoplasms (transitional cell carcinoma) and a high percentage of transitional cell carcinoma in situ (CIS) has been described; however, the role of p53 before and after bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) treatment of CIS needs to be defined.

Methods: Immunohistochemical reaction for p53 overexpression was performed on 12 patients with CIS before and after BCG treatment. Thirty cystectomy specimens with invasive TCC were also evaluated for the presence of CIS, hyperplasia, and dysplasia.

The interrelationships between wound management, thermal stress, energy metabolism, and temperature profiles of patients with burns.

This prospective randomized study was performed to evaluate the metabolic and thermal responsiveness of patients with burns to thermal stress with three protocols of wound care: group I (n = 7) treated with dressings and variable ambient temperature selected for patients subjective comfort; group II (n = 7) treated without dressings and variable ambient temperature for patient comfort; group III (n = 6) treated without dressings and ambient temperature of 25 degrees C, electromagnetic heaters were set to achieve patient subjective comfort; and group IV (n = 6) healthy volunteers. After baseline partitional calorimetry was performed, individual patients were cold-challenged while subjectively comfortable by sequentially lowering either the ambient temperature or the output from the electromagnetic heaters. Heat balance and temperatures were obtained after each perturbation in external energy support.

Guinea pigs with large burns are consistently hypermetabolic without an associated increment in rectal temperature.

This study was conducted to examine the guinea pig as a suitable model for the study of the postburn hypermetabolic response and the febrile response that accompanies burn injury in man. Thirty animals were randomly assigned to four groups: > 50% body surface area burn (n = 6); 45% to 50% body surface area burn (n = 10); < 45% body surface area burn (n = 6); and controls (n = 8). On postburn days 3, 7, 11, 13, and 15, sequential temperature measurements were made.

Relationships between heat production, heat loss, and body temperature for rats with burn injuries between 26% and 63% of the body surface area.

Burn injury in man is characterized by increased body temperature proportional to burn wound size and may represent fever and/or hyperthermia. A nonseptic animal model used to study this phenomena has not been described. To test the hypothesis that large burn injuries in rats would produce increased body temperature, the rectal, skin, and body temperatures were sequentially measured and were calculated for rats in the control group and rats with burn injuries covering 26% to 63% of the body surface area [< or = 35%, 36% to 45%, and > or = 46% body surface area].

Control of the hypermetabolic response to burn injury using environmental factors.

This study was performed to establish the relative efficiency of occlusive dressings and variable ambient temperature (group I) versus no dressings and variable ambient temperature (group II) versus no dressings and electromagnetic heaters (group III) for controlling the postburn hypermetabolic response. Fifteen burn patients and five normal controls (group IV) were studied when subjectively comfortable using partitional calorimetry, after which each patient was cold stressed by sequentially decreasing external energy support, and repeating calorimetry studies and serial plasma catecholamine assays. The percentage increase in heat production above predicted normal values was significantly increased for all groups when cold (C) versus neutral (N) (group I: [N] 24 +/- 24 versus [C] 49 +/- 25%; group II: [N] 46 +/- 35 versus [C] 74 +/- 47%; group III: [N] 21 +/- 20 versus [C] 78 +/- 25%; group IV: [N] -9 +/- 12 versus [C] 16 +/- 10%, p less than 0.

Efficacy of breast self-examination teaching methods among older women.

Existing breast self-examination (BSE) educational approaches have not been successful in gaining older women's compliance in proficient BSE. The experimental study detailed in this article was designed to determine whether there is a difference in BSE performance between women taught BSE individually using self-modeling in addition to a breast model (experimental group) and women taught BSE in a group using only a breast model (control group). Seventy-nine women, age 50 and older, randomly were assigned to the experimental and the control group.

The effect of early feeding on postburn hypermetabolism.

The effect of early enteral feeding upon postburn hypermetabolism was studied on the fourteenth postburn day using five groups of rats. Feeding methods and treatments for the groups were: I) rat chow ad libitum at 2 hours postburn (PB); II) fed early by gastrostomy at 2 hours PB; III) fed late by gastrostomy at 72 hours PB; IV) fed early by gastrostomy--shaved control; V) rat chow ad libitum--shaved control. Gastrostomy feedings delivered 175 kcal/kg.

Fluid requirements of severely burned children up to 3 years old: hypertonic lactated saline vs. Ringer's lactate-colloid.

Children with burns greater than or equal to 30 per cent of the body surface area were entered into a prospective fluid resuscitation protocol using hypertonic lactated saline (HLS) or Ringer's lactate-colloid. The two resuscitation groups were subdivided into patients less than or equal to 3 years old and children greater than 3 years old. The children under 3 years old required significantly more fluid and sodium during the first 48 h when calculations were made using body weight as the indexing factor.