The carcinoid endocardial plaque; an ultrastructural study

Ultrastructural studies disclosed that the plaque-like endocardial thickenings in three patients with the carcinoid syndrome were composed of smooth muscle cells embedded in a stroma that was rich in acid mucopolysaccharides, collagen, and microfibrils, but devoid of elastic fibers. The smooth muscle cells contained variable numbers of myofilaments and cisterns of rough surfaced endoplasmic reticulum, and their basement membranes were greatly thickened, reduplicated, and arranged in layers. The endocardial plaques appeared histologically and ultrastructurally similar regardless of their location in the heart. The smooth muscle cells in these plaques appear to have been derived from primitive mesenchymal cells, which normally are present in the subendocardial endothelial space. These observations are interpreted as indicating that the plaques develop as a result of healing of a superficial endocardial injury, which may be initiated by release of bradykinin from hepatic metastases of a carcinoid tumor.     

Characteristics of a human cell line transformed by DNA from human adenovirus type 5

One hundred and fifty lungs from the cases below 15 years of age with various congenital heart diseases and 80 controls were used for histometrical and histological studies. Cases with congenital heart disease were divided into two groups of the increased and the decreased pulmonary blood flow. In the former group, the thickness of the pulmonary arterial media was the same as that of controls in the neonatal period, and through the wall thickness gradually decreased in a pattern seen in controls, the thickness was constantly larger than that of controls. In some cases, the media increased gradually within 6 months after birth. Pneumonia and massive pulmonary hemorrhage were seen in a higher incidence in autopsy cases. Pneumonia in younger infants was histologically characteristic and possibly more correlated to their death. In the latter group, most of the cases were with the thinner medias of the pulmonary arteries. Massive pulmonary hemorrhage was not common in the latter group.     

Program evaluation: resource for decision making

Formal program evaluation is an important resource for health care decision making. It is necessary in situations where traditional organizational evaluative capabilities an no longer meet the requirements of the job at hand.     

Collapse loads of cantilever beams under end shear

Summary Results ofOnat andShield and ofGreen on the collapse loads of symmetrically tapered cantilever beams under a uniformly distributed end shear are extended to cover the entire range of geometric parameters. Close bounds are obtained except for very short beams. In addition, the effect of a parabolic distribution of end shear upon the lower bound is investigated and found to be small. For large beams complete solutions are exhibited. Finally, an optimum design problem is considered: for fixed beam length and end load find the angle of taper which minimizes the weight. The minimum is always achieved for a taper angle (top and bottom) between zero and fifteen degrees.

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Traglast eines einseitig eingespannten, durch Querkraftverteilung, belasteten Balkens

Zusammenfassung Ergebnisse vonOnat undShield, sowie vonGreen, über die Traglast von symmetrisch sich verjüngenden, einseitig eingespannten Balken, die durch eine an ihrem Ende angreifende uniform verteilte Querkraft belastet sind, werden erweitert um den gesamten Bereich der geometrischen Parameter zu erfassen. Mit Ausnahme sehr kurzer Balken werden eng zusammenliegende Schranken erhalten. Zusätzlich wird der Einfluß einer parabolischen Verteilung der Querkraft untersucht und als klein befunden. Für den Fall sehr langer Balken wird eine vollständige Lösung gegeben. Abschließend wird ein optimales Entwurfsproblem betrachtet: Für eine vorgegebene Balkenlänge und Belastung finde man den Verjüngungswinkel, der das Gewicht zu einem Minimum macht. Dieses Minimum wird immer für einen Verjüngungswinkel (zwischen Ober-und Unterseite) zwischen O und 15° angenommen.

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This investigation was supported by the National Research Council of Canada     

Role of the peripheral renin profile in predicting blood pressure control after bilateral nephrectomy in renal-transplanted patients

BACKGROUND: The unregulated renin release by native kidneys is one of the factors responsible for the high incidence of hypertension after renal transplantation but, even after three decades of transplantation, there is still a lack of a method to identify it as the major cause of hypertension. METHODS: We investigated whether or not peripheral renin activity, before and 90 min after 25 mg of captopril, can play this role. One hundred and five consecutive patients with SCr less than 2 mg/dl were studied 18 +/- 8 months after renal transplantation. Forty-seven of them were considered hypertensive and 58 normotensive. All hypertensive patients were submitted to the captopril test to analyse the peripheral renin activity profile. RESULTS: In the hypertensive group, 17 patients (36%) were considered Renin-pos and 30 (64%) Renin-neg. All Renin-pos (stimulated renin = 19.1 +/- 6.4 ng/ml/h) patients were submitted to bilateral nephrectomy (bNx) and re-evaluated 6 months later. All of them normalized renin activity (4.4 +/- 3.0 ng/ml/h, P = 0.0001) and 10 of 17 (60%) became normotensive and off drugs. The remaining seven (40%) decreased the number of hypotensive drugs from 2.2 +/- 0.5 to 0.5 +/- 0.7/pt/day. There was a correlation between b-Renin and dBP (r = 0.47, P < 0.05) which was lost after bNx. An 'in situ' renal-cell carcinoma was found in two cases. Serum creatinine did not change. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that the unregulated renin-angiotensin system from the native kidneys plays a major role in the maintenance of hypertension in some patients with normal graft function and that peripheral renin activity can identify those who will benefit from bilateral nephrectomy.     

Cross-reactivity of workshop antibodies with cells from domestic and wild ruminants

Reactivities of the monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) from the workshop panel with cells from cattle, sheep, goats, Cape buffalo (Syncerus caffer) and waterbuck (Kobus defassa) were tested. One hundred and sixty-nine mAbs reacted with bovine cells and 111 with sheep cells; 86 were shown to react with goat cells, 71 with buffalo cells and 70 with waterbuck cells. Some mAbs cross-reacted with all five ruminants tested, and are likely to react with epitopes that are conserved in other ruminant species. Such mAbs will obviate the need to produce mAbs panels to leukocyte antigens of other ruminants.