Benign nonpeptic esophageal strictures. Diagnosis and treatment

This article studies the causes and treatment of benign nonpeptic esophageal strictures. The authors also discuss various therapeutic techniques for esophageal strictures, including esophageal dilatation with various dilators and balloons. Although the goals of stricture therapy are to relieve dysphagia and prevent stricture reoccurrence, only the first of these goals (effective dilatation with bougienage or balloon dilatation) has been achieved. The prevention of stricture reoccurrence remains to be achieved.     

The mechanism of discharge of sintered plate cadmium electrodes

Sintered plate Cd electrodes have been studied in alkaline solutions using potentiostatic and galvanostatic techniques. The behaviour is, in many ways, similar to that of a flat Cd electrode. A pseudo steady-state current is found due to the dissolution of Cd as Cd(OH)²–₄. At more anodic potentials passivation occurs due to the solid state formation of Cd(OH)₂. This model can account for the results obtained on galvanostatic discharge.     

What is the best method of surgical training?: A report of America's leading senior surgeons

OBJECTIVES: To characterize the career choices and developments made by leading senior surgeons in this country and to examine hypothetically whether application of a short tracking program would have hindered their career decisions. DESIGN: A survey pertaining to each surgeon's career, decisions, and opinions concerning surgical training. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Senior surgeons of regional and national surgical societies. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Survey responses. RESULTS: A total of 352 surveys (41.4%) were received. Respondents answered that the most common reasons for choosing a specialty were role models or mentors (56%), research (51%), and available patient population (23%). The 2 most common stages in a career at which the respondents became interested in a specialty, or an area of expertise, were at the junior residency level (when the specialty was chosen) and at the assistant professor level (when a more specific topic within the specialty was chosen). The most common stage at which the group believed they acquired their expertise was also at the assistant professor level. Seventy-one percent of respondents believed broad training was superior to a short tracking system, although none had participated in shortened surgical training. CONCLUSIONS: Most leading senior surgeons in this country still believe that broad surgical training is superior and should be maintained. Because career specialties in this surveyed group were generally chosen in early residency, a hypothetical application of the short tracking system would have still allowed for these important decisions to be made. Also, it seems likely that specialty and career development would not have been hindered because "expertization" mostly occurred after training was completed. Regardless of training method, a role model or mentor seems most important in career choices and developments.     

Properties of whole saliva and dental plaque in relation to 40-month consumption of chewing gums containing xylitol, sorbitol of sucrose

The concern with nursing research in the future work of nurse graduates. Expectations from the viewpoint of the nurse researcher. Keeping in mind the concerns which occupy nurse researchers now and in the future, expectations are raised of the graduates of degree programmes in nursing science which are now also being established in the Federal Republic of Germany. This takes into account the structurally determined areas of self determined action in new fields of professional practice. Nurse graduates will be seen as "change agents" in their future areas of work and will have three essential aspects of involvement with nursing research: 1. they themselves will conduct research 2. they will receive, put into practice and transmit results of nursing research 3. they will initiate and commission nursing research projects. According to the broad topics of nursing research, requirements for nurses to act as professionals in their new working fields are formulated referring to the given structural conditions in Germany.     

p53 codon 72 polymorphism in Taiwanese lung cancer patients: association with lung cancer susceptibility and prognosis

Previous studies have indicated that milrinone, a specific type III phosphodiesterase inhibitor, may be able to induce chloride secretion in cystic fibrosis (CF) tissues. We have now assessed the effect of this agent in vivo on the nasal epithelium of CF mutant mice and also in the nose and lungs of human subjects with CF. Wild-type mice showed a small hyperpolarization of the nasal potential difference (PD) in response to milrinone (100 microM, 1.6 +/- 0.6 mV, n = 8, P < 0.05). In contrast, CF mice carrying either the most common human mutation of the gene for the CF transmembrane regulator (CFTR), DeltaF508 (protein mislocalized), or the G551D mutation (protein normally localized) failed to demonstrate this response. Milrinone perfused alone had no significant effect on the baseline nasal PD of human subjects without CF (14.7 +/- 4.0 mV preperfusion; 15.3 +/- 4.6 mV postperfusion), but significantly (P < 0.05) augmented the hyperpolarization induced by a subsequently perfused low-chloride solution (with milrinone, 36.8 +/- 3.0 mV, n = 6; without milrinone, 18.1 +/- 2.2 mV, n = 19). In contrast, in human subjects with CF (n = 6), milrinone alone significantly (P < 0. 05) altered the nasal baseline PD (52.2 +/- 3.3 mV preperfusion; 57. 4 +/- 4.2 mV, postperfusion) but not the subsequent responses to the low-chloride solution (with milrinone, 1.1 +/- 2.2 mV, n = 4; without milrinone, 0.6 +/- 0.5 mV, n = 28) or to isoproterenol (100 microM). In a separate study in subjects (n = 6) with the DeltaF508 mutation, nasal coadministration of milrinone with isoproterenol produced no effect in the presence of amiloride and a low-chloride solution (-0.8 +/- 0.5 mV). This was also the case in the nasal epithelium of CF subjects (n = 4) carrying at least one G551D allele (-0.3 +/- 0.8 mV). Similarly, milrinone did not hyperpolarize the PD of either the tracheal (n = 6) or segmental (n = 6) airways of CF subjects (DeltaF508) when applied topically in vivo in the presence of amiloride, isoproterenol, or adenosine triphosphate (all 100 microM) in a low-chloride solution. These data do not support the use of milrinone to induce chloride secretion in CF airways in vivo.     

Al-Ga-Mn-Ca-Cu合金电极碱性体系电化学性能

通过熔铸、压延、退火等一系列工艺制作了新型Al-0.017Ga-0.885Mn-0.038Ca-0.048Cu (wt.%)阳极合金,并通过了EIS、极化曲线分析研究了其在不同浓度NaOH溶液中的腐蚀行为和电化学性能。结果表明,随着NaOH浓度的增加,合金阳极的自腐蚀速率在逐渐增加,Al-0.017Ga-0.885Mn-0.038Ca-0.048Cu合金在4mol/LNaOH溶液中的腐蚀速率增长速度明显降低,放电电压在电流密度为120mA/cm2下仍能维持在1 V左右,阳极能量密度也最高,达6.056kW?h/kg,更适合不同电流密度下的连续恒流放电。且合金的恒流放电和EIS结果与腐蚀特性吻合较好。     

The effect of a pressure garment on post-surgical drainage and seroma formation in breast cancer patients

BACKGROUND: The treatment of choice for cancer of the breast are mastectomy and axillary clearance or wide excision with axillary clearance. The most common complication following such a procedure is seroma formation. Various methods have been used to prevent it. However, the use of a pressure garment in this context has not been fully evaluated in the current literature. RESULTS: In a randomised trial comparing patients with a pressure garment with those without one, we have found no improvement in post-operative drainage with the use of a pressure garment. There were more complications in the group without the pressure garment (19%) compared with those with the garment (15.7%). The only seroma occurred in those patients not using the garment. The use of the pressure garment appeared to increase the duration of use of the drain (6.8 vs 6.1 days), these differences in the two groups was not significant. One of the patients in the pressure garment group was unable to tolerate the warmth and discontinued wearing the garment in the third post-operative day. This gave a rejection rate of 5%. CONCLUSION: The use of a pressure garment does not reduce the post-operative drainage, however, the complication rate appears to be higher when the pressure garment is not being used.     

Susceptibility of heterozygous MnSOD gene-knockout mice to oxygen toxicity

OBJECTIVE: To study type IV collagen of skin and serum in patients with ALS. BACKGROUND: Collagen abnormalities of skin have been reported in ALS patients. However, little is known concerning type IV collagen in ALS. METHODS: We studied type IV collagen immunoreactivity of skin and measured serum levels of the 7S fragment of the N-terminal domain of type IV collagen (7S collagen) in patients with ALS and control subjects. RESULTS: The basement membrane as well as blood vessels of skin in ALS patients was weakly positive for type IV collagen as compared with those of diseased control subjects. This weak immunostaining became more pronounced as ALS progressed. The optical density for type IV collagen immunoreactivity in ALS patients was significantly lower (p < 0.001) than in diseased control subjects and was significantly decreased with duration of illness (r = -0.85, p < 0.01). Serum 7S collagen levels in patients with ALS were significantly decreased (p < 0.01) as compared with those in diseased and healthy control subjects and were negatively and significantly associated with duration of illness (r = -0.81, p < 0.001). There was an appreciable positive correlation between concentrations of serum 7S collagen and the density for type IV collagen immunoreactivity in ALS patients (r = 0.81, p < 0.02). CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that a metabolic alteration of type IV collagen may take place in the skin of ALS patients and that the decreased levels of serum 7S collagen may reflect a decreased type IV collagen immunoreactivity of skin in patients with ALS.