A study of protein clearances in patients with nephrotic syndrome

In 37 patients of nephrotic syndrome, serum protein levels, protein fractions and urinary levels of proteins and their fractions were determined. The findings of serum levels of proteins and their fractions were compared with an equal number of age and sex matched controls. Twenty three patients showed selective and 14 non-selective proteinuria. Most of the patients with selective proteinuria showed good response to steroids therapy while those with non-selective proteinuria did not respond.     

Immunization schedules for the new human diploid cell vaccine against rabies

The records of 340 patients treated surgically over the 20 year period 1950 through 1969 at this clinic for primary epidermoid carcinoma of the anterior two-thirds of the tongue were reviewed to evaluate the effectiveness of elective versus therapeutic radical neck dissection in their treatment. There has been a change in the clinical presentation of this disease, with more people presenting at an earlier stage, with a smaller primary lesion and fewer cervical node metastases. The over-all survival rate has shown a marked improvement to 69 per cent at five years. The proportion of women afflicted has increased. The status of the cervical nodes is a major prognostic factor, the determining five year survival rate being reduced from 78 to 26 per cent if the nodes are metastatically involved. It cannot be directly proved that removal of occult metastasis to the neck by elective radical neck dissection before nodes are clinically detectable leads to a better survival rate partly because the two groups being compared are selected and not randomly assigned. However, the marked tendency for carcinoma of the tongue to metastasize regionally at some time in its course, the significant error in clinical evaluation of the neck, the significant conversion of clinically negative nodes to positive in patients not treated with radical neck dissection, the poor prognosis after treatment of conversion from clinically negative into positive and the fact that more than half of the deaths are due to uncontrolled disease of the neck alone, make us strongly favor the principle of elective radical neck dissection to enhance the survival time in the group of patients without clinical evidence of nodal involvement. With current surgical expertise, the mortality and morbidity rates of simultaneous radical neck dissection are low, and the potential benefit of the procedure outweighs its potential risks. Obviously, elective radical neck dissection, if beneficial, would most likely be so in patients with the highest likelihood of having occult metastasis.     

The noneffect of a large linear hydrocarbon, squalene, on the phosphatidylcholine packing structure

The interaction of squalene with liposomes and monolayers of dipalmitoyl phosphatidylcholine (DPL) has been studied by differential scanning calorimetry, Raman spectroscopy, and surface potential measurements. Mole ratios of squalene to DPL up to 9 to 1 were studied. In contrast to small, nonpolar molecules, which profoundly influence the structure of lipid bilayers as detected by changes in both their thermodynamic phase transition parameters and membrane fluidity, this large, nonpolar, linear hydrocarbon is devoid of such influences. It is clear from our data that a large nonpolar molecule such as squalene, having no polar group that might anchor it to the aqueous interface, cannot intercalate between the acyl chains either below or above the phase transition of DPL. This behavior is not compatible with models that treat the bilayer interior as a bulk hydrocarbon, and suggests that great caution should be exercised in extrapolating partition coefficients based on bulk hydrocarbon measurements to lipid bilayers.