Lingual ischemia following tongue entrapment in a glass bottle

A 10-year-old, previously healthy female presented to the emergency department via emergency medical service transport, with her tongue tightly entrapped inside a glass bottle (9 oz, Yoohoo brand of chocolate drink). The tongue was massively edematous and ecchymotic due to impaired venous return from constriction by the neck of the bottle. After repeated attempts at mechanically reducing the tongue out of the bottle, a professional glazier was contacted, who was able to remove the bottle in the operating room with a steel glass cutter. Needle evacuation of a small hematoma was then performed to decrease the pressure ischemia to the tongue, which began to improve quickly.     

US-guided pseudoaneurysm repair with a compression device

A simple commercially available compression device allowed intermittent ultrasound scanning of the compression site during compression repair of a femoral artery pseudoaneurysm in six patients. All six of the pseudoaneurysms (five superficial femoral and one common femoral) were compressed without compression of the underlying vessels. The procedure was successful in four of the six patients, without complications. Use of this device may decrease operator fatigue during compression repair of pseudoaneurysm.     

Molecular cloning of a novel melanocortin receptor

Using the technique of the polymerase chain reaction primed with oligonucleotides based on the homologous transmembrane regions of seven transmembrane G protein-linked receptors, we isolated three full-length human genes that encode a novel subgroup of this receptor family. Recently, two of these receptors were identified as specific for alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone (alpha-MSH) and adrenocorticotropic hormone. We report the molecular cloning and pharmacologic characterization of a third member of this subgroup. The gene for this receptor encodes a protein of 361 amino acids in length. Its pharmacology characterizes it as an MSH receptor specific to the heptapeptide core common to adrenocorticotropic hormone and alpha-, beta-, and gamma-MSH. By Northern blot hybridization and polymerase chain reaction, it is expressed in brain, placental, and gut tissues but not in melanoma cells or in the adrenal gland. These findings may yield insight into the physiology of peptides derived from pro-opiomelanocortin post-translational processing.     

Antigenic and genetic diversities of Babesia ovata in persistently infected cattle

Exploring the antigenic and genetic diversities of Babesia ovata, we obtained several field isolates from grazing cattle in the Okushiri island, Japan. Parasite isolation was greatly facilitated by using bovine red blood cell-substituted SCID mice (Bo-RBC-SCID mice), into which the blood samples of the cattle were inoculated. Isolates from different individuals within a herd of cattle were compared in immunoblot analysis with an anti-B. ovata serum and also in Southern blot analysis with a probe for the small subunit ribosomal RNA gene. In both analyses, the isolates exhibited banding patterns that were significantly different from each other. We were also able to obtain a series of parasite isolates from a single cow in different seasons of a nine months period, including winter when active vector ticks were not in the field environment. Different seasonal isolates showed different banding patterns in both immunoblot and Southern blot analyses. By contrast, these analyses detected little difference among the parasites that had been passed various times in Bo-RBC-SCID mice, where no specific immune responses should be generated. These results indicate that individual animals within a herd of cattle were infected with antigenically and genetically diversified populations of B. ovata, and that the parasites could persistently infect a single animal with dynamic change in their predominant subpopulations.