Wound seeding associated with endometrial cancer

We report a patient with well-differentiated adenocarcinoma of the endometrium who developed a recurrence in the anterior abdominal wall probably secondary to wound seeding at the time of her original surgery. She underwent total abdominal hysterectomy, bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy. She then received 15 mCi of 32P for positive peritoneal washings. She was free of disease until 2 years later when a large lower incision mass developed. She had no evidence for intra-abdominal disease and a radical resection with a myocutaneous flap was undertaken. Radical resection for isolated metastases may be of benefit for patients with endometrial cancer. Patients with positive cytology should be observed closely for incisional recurrence.     

In-shoe biaxial shear force measurement: the Kent shear system

Involvement of the nail unit in pemphigus vulgaris is thought to be uncommon. However, trachyonychia, nail atrophy, onychomadesis, onycholysis, nail bed erosion, onychoschizia, subungual haemorrhage, nail pitting, nail plate discoloration, cross-ridging of nail plate, Beau's line and paronychia have been reported. These manifestations may be due either to secondary extension of the bulla adjacent to the nail or primary involvement of the nail bed, nail matrix and nail fold. We report four patients with pemphigus vulgaris who developed paronychia with a corresponding exacerbation of their cutaneous lesions. Nail fold biopsy and direct immunofluorescence revealed features of permphigus vulgaris. Treatment with immunosuppressive agents showed simultaneous improvement of both cutaneous and nail lesions.     

The results of the rehabilitative treatment of patients who have had a myocardial infarct complicated by a block of the right branch of the atrioventricular bundle

The disturbances in the cardiac left ventricular contractility have been shown to be much graver in complete blockade of the right bundle of His as evidenced by the examination of 35 patients who had a history of myocardial infarction, and data from the two-year follow-up. The data obtained should be considered in determining time for the patients fo return to their ordinary activities and become functional members of society.     

The development of a data system for a combination of liquid chromatography or capillary electrophoresis with an ion trap storage/reflectron time-of-flight mass detector

A data system based upon a 200 MHz transient recorder interface card in a Pentium PC computer is demonstrated for on-line analysis of microbore high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), capillary HPLC and capillary electrophoresis (CE) separations using a fast and sensitive ion-trap storage/reflectron time-of-flight mass spectrometric detector (IT-reTOFMS). Under the control of a user-written program, the system is capable of conducting the data acquisition and storage for a minimum of 30 min, at rates exceeding 10 Hz, of individual mass spectra containing 16,000 data points having 10 nsec resolution. The capability is mainly attributed to the use of a data reduction scheme in which only mass intensities higher than a preset threshold are saved as indexed flight-time/intensity pairs. This produces a typical reduction ratio of 30:1 in data set size, yielding faster storage with smaller file size, and permits the complete set of mass spectra to be held in the computer's memory. In addition, the data system is capable of displaying, for real-time evaluation of the analysis, each individual mass spectrum and the total-ion chromatogram. Further, the selected-ion chromatograms of given masses and a 3-dimensional topographic map describing a separation process can be rapidly generated from the collected data for the unambiguous and high fidelity identification of target analytes in a complex mixture.     

The regulation of an age-structured population by a fatal disease

A model describing the effect of a fatal disease on an age-structured population which would otherwise grow is presented and analysed. If the disease is capable of regulating host numbers, there is an endemic steady age distribution (SAD), for which an analytic expression is obtained under some simplifying assumptions. The ability of the disease to regulate the population depends on a parameter R(alpha), which is defined in terms of the given age-dependent birth and death rates, and where alpha is the age-dependent disease-induced death rate. If R(alpha) < 1 the endemic SAD is attained, while R(alpha) > 1 means the disease cannot control the population's size. The number R(0) is the expected number of offspring produced by each individual in the absence of the disease; for a growing population we require R(0) > 1. A stability analysis is also performed and it is conjectured that the endemic SAD is locally asymptotically stable whenever it is attained. This is demonstrated explicitly for a very simple example where all rates are taken as constant.     

SociaL aspects of pulmonology

A group of new-onset pulmonary tuberculosis patients has been studied and its social characterization is provided in the paper. Comparison of the 1991-1992 findings with those obtained in 1970-1980 has indicated that social aspects are topical as before and have some specific features in recent years. The most important issues are now living conditions, financial status of the patients, their social lifestyle, refugees and rational employment of tuberculosis patients and disabled persons.