The Influence of Physical Exercise on Smoking Patients with Peripheral Arterial Disease.

Smoking should be identified as a major risk factor for Peripheral arterial disease. The purpose of this prospective, randomized, controlled clinical study was to determine whether a rehabilitation program is more efficient than the usual healthcare assistance (medication, hygiene and diet) for improving walking function on the smoking and nonsmoking patients with PAD. For smokers, there were no significant differences after 12 weeks and also 24 weeks, although the 4MWS mean values increased compared to the control. At 24 weeks study time point nonsmokers in the group performed special massage techniques along with the supervised kinesiotherapy had significantly greater improvement in their 4MWS, compared to the group with physical exercises or control. A well-structured rehabilitation program, in terms of intensity, duration and frequency may be of great help for improving the functional status of these patients with peripheral ischemia syndrome.

Diagnosis Particularities of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in an Elderly Patient.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a degenerative motor neuron disease (MND) which prognosis is poor. Early diagnosis permits to set up immediately adapted treatment. Available diagnostic criteria are based on the detection of both central and peripheral motor neuron injury in bulbar, cervical, thoracic and lumbar regions. Electrodiagnostic tests are key tools to identify peripheral motor neuron involvement. In the absence of a diagnostic biomarker of ALS, a careful clinical and neurophysiological work-up is essential to rule the differential diagnosis. The study presents the case of a 74 years-old woman who was diagnosed with ALS using clinical examination and electromyography.

Learning chronobiology by improving Wikipedia.

Although chronobiology is of growing interest to scientists, physicians, and the general public, access to recent discoveries and historical perspectives is limited. Wikipedia is an online, user-written encyclopedia that could enhance public access to current understanding in chronobiology. However, Wikipedia is lacking important information and is not universally trusted. Here, 46 students in a university course edited Wikipedia to enhance public access to important discoveries in chronobiology. Students worked for an average of 9 h each to evaluate the primary literature and available Wikipedia information, nominated sites for editing, and, after voting, edited the 15 Wikipedia pages they determined to be highest priorities. This assignment (http://www.nslc.wustl.edu/courses/Bio4030/wikipedia_project.html) was easy to implement, required relatively short time commitments from the professor and students, and had measurable impacts on Wikipedia and the students. Students created 3 new Wikipedia sites, edited 12 additional sites, and cited 347 peer-reviewed articles. The targeted sites all became top hits in online search engines. Because their writing was and will be read by a worldwide audience, students found the experience rewarding. Students reported significantly increased comfort with reading, critiquing, and summarizing primary literature and benefited from seeing their work edited by other scientists and editors of Wikipedia. We conclude that, in a short project, students can assist in making chronobiology widely accessible and learn from the editorial process.

Clinical manifestations in the West Nile virus outbreak.

During the summer of 1996 an unusual clustering of meningoencephalitis cases was recorded in the Capital City, Bucharest, and in some areas from South-East Romania. After an initial suspicion of an enteroviral etiology was discarded, the West Nile etiology was confirmed by specific antibodies demonstration through hemagglutination-inhibition and ELISA tests. This study included 251 patients with the diagnoses of West Nile acute encephalitis (166 cases), acute meningitis (57 cases) and acute febrile disease (33 cases). The patients' age ranged from 1 to 89 years (mean 51.1 years). The most frequent clinical manifestations were: fever (95.7% of cases), cephalalgia (92.6%), stiffness of the neck (89.1%), vomiting (62.5%), marked asthenia (46.5%), myalgia (28.9%). In addition, patients with encephalitis exhibited: alteration of consciousness (89.2% of cases), tremor of extremities (40.4%), ataxia (44%), paralysis (15.1%). The fatality rate was 15.1% in acute encephalitis, 1.8% in acute meningitis and 0% in the acute febrile disease.

Reconocimiento edafológico del área regable con aguas del Río Atuel en la zona de Santa Isabel; informe final

Ante la posibilidad de contar con un cupo de agua permanente, La Pampa efectivizó un estudio edafológico en un área proxima a las riberas del Río Atuel con la finalidad de implantar un oasis de riego que permita revertir el proceso de desertíficación. El reconocimiento cubrió unas 105.000 has. y los estudios se realizaron siguiendo normas y procedimientos del Bureau of Reclamatión (Estados Unidos), FAO y el Departamento de Agricultura (Estados Unidos) adaptados a las necesidades regionales. Se utilizó aerofotointerpretación, se caracterizaron mas de 400 perfiles, se analizaron mas de un millar de muestras de suelo y se realizaron ensayos de infiltración para corregir salinización. Esto permitió definir 4 unidades geomorfológicas compuestas por 13 subunidades y detectar 97.000 has. aproximadamente aptas para cultivos

Reconocimiento edafológico del área regable con aguas del Río Atuel en la zona de Santa Isabel; informe final

Ante la posibilidad de contar con un cupo de agua permanente, La Pampa efectivizó un estudio edafológico en un área proxima a las riberas del Río Atuel con la finalidad de implantar un oasis de riego que permita revertir el proceso de desertíficación. El reconocimiento cubrió unas 105.000 has. y los estudios se realizaron siguiendo normas y procedimientos del Bureau of Reclamatión (Estados Unidos), FAO y el Departamento de Agricultura (Estados Unidos) adaptados a las necesidades regionales. Se utilizó aerofotointerpretación, se caracterizaron mas de 400 perfiles, se analizaron mas de un millar de muestras de suelo y se realizaron ensayos de infiltración para corregir salinización. Esto permitió definir 4 unidades geomorfológicas compuestas por 13 subunidades y detectar 97.000 has. aproximadamente aptas para cultivos

Chlorpromazine-induced decrease of red cell aggregability.

Starting from the assumption that binding of chlorpromazine to the erythrocyte membrane might influence th rheology of these cells, the authors studied erythrocyte aggregability and deformability by means of a filtrability test in 42 neurotics and 16 patients with personality disorders, all males, aged 20 to 27 years, clinically healthy from the somatic view point. Determinations were carried out before and 30 min after a single i.m. dose of 1 mg/kg b.w. chlorpromazine (14 patients) and before and after a 5-day oral treatment with 3 mg/day haloperidol (11 patients) or 75 mg/day chlorpromazine (33 patients). Chlorpromazine induced a significant decrease of erythrocyte aggregability after 5 days of oral treatment (p less than 0.02) the effect being more marked in the patients with relatively high initial values (p less than 0.01). The mechanism of this phenomenon and its possible implications of ESR determination and in the therapy of occlusive vascular diseases are discussed.

Erythrocyte rheology in acute cerebral thrombosis. Effects of ABO blood groups.

Within a few hours after a cerebral thrombosis in 220 patients, the flow-properties of the red blood cells (RBC) were analyzed by a filtration test that expresses quantitatively the deformability and aggregability of the RBC by the filtration indexes pT. Abnormal deformability of the RBC washed clean of plasma was found in 27.5% of the patients. Aggregability disorders, caused by the plasma trapped between the unwashed RBC, were found in 78.6% of the patients: computation of correlation coefficients between pT indexes and fibrinogen, which was found abnormally high in 88.2% of cases, demonstrated significantly that in the patients with A and B blood groups these aggregability disorders were due to fibrinogen and that they were caused by other components of plasma in patients with O and AB blood groups. All these disorders can account for blood hyperviscosity.

Two cases of choreatic syndrome caused by polycythemia vera.

Two patients with choreatic syndromes caused by polycythemia vera recovered after treatment of the polycythemia by only two venesections: this proves that the syndrome is due to reversible alterations. Investigations of the cerebral circulation in one of the patients showed that blood flow was lowest in the grey matter at the basal region of the brain: this suggests that the alterations might mainly occur there. However, investigation of erythrocyte rheology, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, serum concentrations of caeruloplasmin and serotonin, and urinary excretion of epinephrine, norepinephrine and vanillylmandelic acid gave normal results in both patients. There are therefore no indications as to the possible pathophysiology of these alterations. There are now 24 cases reported, including our 2 patients, which suggests that the association of these two diseases may not be so rare as supposed.

Radioisotope investigations in some hemolytic disorders of children.

Ferrokinetics and life-span of erythrocytes were investigated with 59Fe and 51Cr respectively, in 15 children with thalassemia major, aged between 18 months and 15 years (five of which had been splenectomized), and in 8 children with hereditary spherocytosis aged between 12 and 14 years. In all cases studied with 59Fe there was low tracer incorporation in erythrocytes, but no correlation of this parameter to the amount of Hb F. The use of radioisotopes in studies of hemolytic disorders of children is stressed, primarily when splenectomy is considered. Investigation of ferrokinetics in thalassemic children is useful for monitoring advanced stages of the disease.

Cerebral thrombosis, cerebral haemorrhage, and ABO blood-groups.

The ABO blood-group distributions of 1460 patients who had died from a stroke were compared with those of a control group of 20 705 controls selected at random from the healthy population at risk (i.e., over thirty-five years of age and matched for age and sex ratio). The cause of death was certified as cerebral thrombosis in 329 cases and as cerebral haemorrhage in 482 cases, these diagnoses being established in neurological hospitals; the remaining 649 cases had an unspecified type of stroke, the diagnosis being made by general practitioners. In the group with unspecified type of stroke the blood-group distribution was practically the same as the distribution in the controls. In the thrombosis cases there was an excess of blood-groups A and AB and a deficiency of O and B; in cerebral haemorrhage this situation was reversed. However, these were only trends; the differences were not significant at the 5% level. A statistically significant difference did emerge when the A+AB excess in thrombosis was contrasted with the O+B excess in haemorrhage, suggesting that this difference might be accounted for the major A subgroup (A1) and, consequently, A1B.