Legg-Calvé-Perthes disease in Nigerians

Ten new patients with Legg-Calvé-Perthes disease were seen in the University College Hospital, Ibadan, in ten years, out of a hospital pediatric population of 550,000, giving an incidence of 1:55,000. This result is consistent with previous reports that Legg-Calvé-Perthes disease is less common in Negroes than in Caucasians but Negroes are not immune.     

Effects of dianabol and high-intensity sprint training on body composition of rats

The practice of sequential incubation in radio-immunoassay of TSH improves the sensitivity and precision without affecting the specificity compared with the method using simultaneous incubation of the constituents of the radio-immunological reaction. The determination of basic levels of TSH is more sensitive and more precise.     

Theoretical antideuteron-nucleus absorptive cross sections

Antideuteron-nucleus absorptive cross sections for intermediate to high energies are calculated using an ion-ion optical model. Good agreement with experiment (within 15 percent) is obtained in this same model for mean p-nucleus cross sections at laboratory energies up to 15 GeV. We describe a technique for estimating antinucleus-nucleus cross sections from N mean N data and suggest that further cosmic ray studies to search for antideuterons and other antinuclei be undertaken.     

Liver failure and death after exposure to microcystins at a hemodialysis center in Brazil

BACKGROUND: Hemodialysis is a common but potentially hazardous procedure. From February 17 to 20, 1996, 116 of 130 patients (89 percent) at a dialysis center (dialysis center A) in Caruaru, Brazil, had visual disturbances, nausea, and vomiting associated with hemodialysis. By March 24, 26 of the patients had died of acute liver failure. METHODS: A case patient was defined as any patient undergoing dialysis at dialysis center A or Caruaru's other dialysis center (dialysis center B) during February 1996 who had acute liver failure. To determine the risk factors for and the source of the outbreak, we conducted a cohort study of the 130 patients at dialysis center A and the 47 patients at dialysis center B, reviewed the centers' water supplies, and collected water, patients' serum, and postmortem liver tissue for microcystin assays. RESULTS: One hundred one patients (all at dialysis center A) met the case definition, and 50 died. Affected patients who died were older than those who survived (median age, 47 vs. 35 years, P<0.001). Furthermore, all 17 patients undergoing dialysis on the Tuesday-, Thursday-, and Saturday-night schedule became ill, and 13 of them (76 percent) died. Both centers received water from a nearby reservoir. However, the water supplied to dialysis center B was treated, filtered, and chlorinated, whereas the water supplied to dialysis center A was not. Microcystins produced by cyanobacteria were detected in water from the reservoir and from dialysis center A and in serum and liver tissue of case patients. CONCLUSIONS: Water used for hemodialysis can contain toxic materials, and its quality should therefore be carefully monitored.