Benzodiazepine partially reverses tonic-clonic seizures induced by thiocolchicoside.

Seizures are a disorder caused by structural brain lesions, life-threatening metabolic derangements, or drug toxicity. The present study describes the behavior related to proconvulsant activity induced by thiocolchicoside (TCC) in rats and investigates the electrocorticographic patterns of this behavior and the effectiveness of classic antiepileptic drugs used to control these seizures. Forty-nine adult male Wistar rats were used and divided into two phases of our experimental design: 1) evaluation of seizure-related behavior and electrocorticographic patterns induced by TCC and 2) evaluation of the efficacy of classical antiepileptic drugs to control the proconvulsive activity caused by TCC. Our results showed that TCC induced tonic-clonic seizures that caused changes in electrocorticographic readings, characteristic of convulsive activity, with average amplitude greater than that induced by pentylenetetrazole. Treatment with anticonvulsants, especially diazepam, reduced the electrocorticographic outbreaks induced by TCC. The results suggested that TCC caused seizures with increased power in brain oscillations up to 40 Hz and that diazepam may partially reverse the effects.

Benzodiazepine partially reverses tonic-clonic seizures induced by thiocolchicoside

Seizures are a disorder caused by structural brain lesions, life-threatening metabolic derangements, or drug toxicity. The present study describes the behavior related to proconvulsant activity induced by thiocolchicoside (TCC) in rats and investigates the electrocorticographic patterns of this behavior and the effectiveness of classic antiepileptic drugs used to control these seizures. Forty-nine adult male Wistar rats were used and divided into two phases of our experimental design: 1) evaluation of seizure-related behavior and electrocorticographic patterns induced by TCC and 2) evaluation of the efficacy of classical antiepileptic drugs to control the proconvulsive activity caused by TCC. Our results showed that TCC induced tonic-clonic seizures that caused changes in electrocorticographic readings, characteristic of convulsive activity, with average amplitude greater than that induced by pentylenetetrazole. Treatment with anticonvulsants, especially diazepam, reduced the electrocorticographic outbreaks induced by TCC. The results suggested that TCC caused seizures with increased power in brain oscillations up to 40 Hz and that diazepam may partially reverse the effects.

[Schoolchildren statural deficit cartography in Paraíba State, Brazil]. / Cartografia do retardo estatural em escolares do Estado da Paraíba, Brasil.

OBJECTIVE: The study is part of a project financed by the United Nations (FAO) and the Ministry of Education of Brazil (Fundação de Assistência ao Escolar) which intends to evaluate the nutritional status of public schools students in order to estimate, giving emphasis to geographical aspects, the magnitude and distribution of statural deficit of this population in the Paraíba State, Northeastern Brazil. METHODS: Schoolchildren, aged 6-9 years and enrolled in the first grade inall municipalities of Paraíba state went through a height survey. We consider as statural deficit values below -2 standard deviations according to the anthropometric pattern of National Center of Health Statistics. RESULTS: A frequency of 14. 5% of statural deficit was found in the whole state, as well as 18. 7% in the semidesertic region (sertão), 13.8% in Agreste area, 11. 9% in Borborema region and 10.9% in Mata zone. In rural area, the prevalence of statural deficit was higher (17.8%) than for those living in urban area (11.8%). CONCLUSIONS: The results reveal a process of inlanding of statural deficit, which contrasts with historical descriptions of the geographical distribution of this problem in the Northeastern region of Brazil

Reasons for hospitalization due to abortion and pregnancy termination.

The aim of this study was to identify the reasons for hospitalization associated with abortion and pregnancy termination among women attending the Maternity Unit of IMIP, Recife, Brazil. In a case-control study, 230 women who were hospitalized consecutively between August 1994 and June 1995 due to causes related to pregnancy termination or abortion were chosen as cases. Four controls per case were selected randomly out of a total of 920 women who delivered at the same hospital. For each potential cause considered, the odds ratio (OR) and respective 95 per cent confidence interval (CI) were calculated. Multiple logistic regression analysis was then used to control for confounders. Among all potential causes studied, those that showed significant association with pregnancy termination or abortion were: being single, absence of emotional support from partner, being a working woman, literacy up to the fourth year of school, failure of contraceptive method employed, and experience of previous pregnancies, children, and abortions.

[Use of daily and weekly ferrous sulfate to treat anemic childbearing-age women]. / Uso diário e semanal de sulfato ferroso no tratamento de anemia em mulheres no período reprodutivo.

A blind randomized trial was conducted in a low-income community in the city of Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil, with 193 anemic (Hb <12 mg/dl) and "menstruating" women (age range: 15-45 years) to compare daily and weekly doses of ferrous sulfate (60 mg elemental iron) and treatment compliance. Blood samples were taken from 484 women to determine hemoglobin levels before and after the trial and mean corpuscular volume (MCV) at end of treatment. After 12 weeks' follow-up, 150 women completed the trial, 79 on the alternative weekly regimen and 71 on the conventional daily regimen. Mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentrations (MCHC) prior to treatment were 10.52 g/dl (DP=1.13) and 10.72 g/dl (DP=0.92), respectively, for the alternative and conventional regimens. After the intervention they were 11.83 g/dl (DP=0.97) for the weekly regimen and 11.62 g/dl (DP=1.39) for the daily one. The alternative regimen was better accepted than the conventional one. There was no significant difference (p=0.22) between differences in the mean values of the two regimens, although the cure rate was higher after the alternative treatment. The study concluded that the weekly regimen was no less effective than daily treatment.

[Medical periodicals and the invention of a sanitary agenda for Brazil (1827-43)]. / Os periodicos medicos e a invencao de uma agenda sanitaria para o Brasil (1827-43).

In this contribution to the debate on the institutionalization of medicine in Brazil, special focus is placed on the role that the first Brazilian medical periodicals played in endeavoring to establish and broaden the medical audience. The success of these efforts meant that physicians belonging to Rio de Janeiro's Sociedade de Medicina and, later, to the Academia Imperial de Medicina needed to make scientific periodicals an effective means of exchange among members of Rio de Janeiro's cultured elite. The attention devoted by these periodicals to the nation's sanitary issues underscores the importance of the hygienist discourse, viewed as the prime way to bring medicine into public life.

[The Rio de Janeiro Medical and Surgical Society: the genesis of an alternative institutional network]. / A Sociedade de Medicina e Cirurgia do Rio de Janeiro: a gênese de uma rede institucional alternativa.

Creation of the Rio de Janeiro Medical and Surgical Society serves as the basis for this study of late-19th-century medicine in Brazil. The hypothesis is that beginning in the 1880s changes to institutions and the diversification of medical community inaugurateed the structuring of a field of social relations specific to medical practitioners. With official medical institutions undergoing crises, alternative groups that emerged outside the government framework worked together toward common ends, particularly the construction of a kind of Brazilian medical knowledge that could play a role on the international scientific scenario.