Critical care medicine

A postmortem case of HTLV-I associated myelopathy (HAM)/tropical spastic paraparesis (TSP) with a history of remission and exacerbation of neurological signs and symptoms, resembling those of multiple sclerosis is reported. MRI analysis revealed lesions in the periventricular white matter in addition to atrophy of the thoracic spinal cord, characteristic of HAM/TSP. The cerebral periventricular areas consisted of ill-defined paucity of myelin sheaths with astrocytic gliosis and hyaline thickening of blood vessels. The poorly demarcated white matter lesions found in both brain and spinal cord were different from plaques found in multiple sclerosis. It is suggested that, in some cases of HAM/TSP, inflammatory lesions that destroy myelin can involve not only the spinal cord but also the cerebral periventricular white matter.     

A study of self poisoning with oral salbutamol--laboratory and clinical features

A review of 35 patients > 60 years of age with odontoid fractures showed that a type II injury (Anderson and D'Alonso) was the most common fracture pattern (82% of cases). On the basis of mechanism of injury and sex incidence, we deduced that osteopenia is a contributory factor in the occurrence of odontoid fractures. A fall in a domestic setting was the cause in 53%. The peg was posteriorly displaced in 88% of type II fractures, and primary union occurred in 23%. The incidence of concomitant spinal cord injury with type II fractures was higher in older patients than it was in those < 60 years of age. The outcome for these patients was largely determined by their neurological status at presentation. Myelopathy as a late complication of nonunion was not observed in nine patients with an average follow-up of 21 months. The data suggest that vigorous attempts to secure both primary union and a sound arthrodesis for non-union are questionable in the elderly except in unusual circumstances.     

Effect of Pressure on Intermediate Valence States in Cerium Kondo Compounds

Electrical resistance, thermal expansion, lattice constants of the intermediate valence materials, α-Ce and CeBe13, were measured at high pressure. It is found that the Grttneisen parameters of Kondo temperature TK are 13 and 42 for α-Ce and CeBe13, respectively, and it decreases with increasing pressure. The magnetoresistance of α-Ce shows H^2 dependence and its coefficient increases with pressure below 1 GPa, but becomes nearly constant above 1 GPa. The results indicate that the intermediate valence states are enhanced at high pressure indicating the enhancement of hybridization between the 4f electron and conduction band.     

Tracking and motion analysis of the left ventricle with deformable superquadrics

We present a new approach to analyse the deformation of the left ventricle of the heart based on a parametric model that gives a compact representation of a set of points in a 3-D image. We present a strategy for tracking surfaces in a sequence of 3-D cardiac images. Following tracking, we then infer quantitative parameters which characterize: left ventricle motion, volume of left ventricle, ejection fraction, amplitude and twist component of cardiac motion. We explain the computation of these parameters using our model. Experimental results are shown in time sequences of two modalities of medical images, nuclear medicine and X-ray computed tomography (CT). Video sequences presenting these results are on the CD-ROM.