[The immediate and long-term results of sylvinite speleoclimatotherapy in the children presenting with pollinosis].

The present open randomized comparative study had the objective to compare the effectiveness of two strategies for the treatment of early spring pollinosis in 23 children at the age varying from 2 to 17 years in the phase of exacerbation. The patients of the study group underwent 10 sessions of sylvinite speleoclimatotherapy 60 min in duration each in addition to conventional pharmacotherapy. The children included in the control group were treated by traditional medicamental therapy alone. The estimation of clinical symptoms on day 10 after the onset of the treatment with the use of a scoring system has demonstrated a marked decrease in the severity of allergic rhinitis (p = 0.003), conjunctivitis (p = 0.01), and the total number of signs and symptoms of the disease (p = 0.002) in the children managed with the use of sylvinite speleoclimatotherapy. Positive dynamics in the patients of the control group was less pronounced (p < 0.05). The aeropollinological data are presented giving evidence of the absence of a high pollen concentration in the air of the speleoclimatic chamber and its high content in the atmospheric air at the height of thepollen season of early spring allergens. The clinical manifestations of the allergic conditions were shown to depend on the concentration in the atmospheric air of the causative allergens from their principle plant sources (r = 0.66, p = 0.039 in the control patients in comparison with r = 0.42, p = 0.22 in the children treated by sylvinite speleoclimatotherapy. It is concluded that the results of the present study confirm the clinical effectiveness of sylvinite speleoclimatotherapy used in the acute phase of pollinosis. The combination of this modality with traditional medicamental therapy accelerates elimination of clinical symptoms of allergic rhinitis and conjunctivitis; moreover, it reduces the frequency of recurrent respiratory disorders.

[The clinical results and lipid peroxidation dynamics in the patients presenting with psoriasis treated by the applications of a natural highly mineralized bromine-iodine brine].

The authors report the results of the treatment of 64 patients presenting with psoriasis by the applications of a natural highly mineralized bromine-iodine brine. The method has been shown to be highly efficacious and safe. It allowed the clinical remission and marked improvement of the patients' clinical conditions to be achieved in 48 (77.4%) cases compared with 10 (27.8%) cases among the patients of the control group. Exacerbation was documented in a single patient with psoriatic erythrodermia. All the patients showed the normal results of general and biochemical clinical analyses of blood and urea throughout the study period. The applications of the natural highly mineralized bromine-iodine brine exerted the normalizing action on seven of the 8 characteristics of the lipid peroxidation process. It is maintained that the high effectiveness of the method in question can be accounted not only by the reflectory and humoral mechanisms of action of highly mineralized bromine-iodine brine but also by the marked exhaustion of the functional reserves of the mast cells under effect of the applications. It is concluded that an advantage of the proposed approach over standard balneotherapeutic procedures consists of the possibility to employ it not only at the base of a spa and health resort facility but also in a different setting with the involvement of the patients suffering from progressive psoriasis.

[Contradictions of modern medicine and the issues of continuing education of primary care doctors].

The national project "Health" stipulates qualitative improvement of first medical aid; the key role here belongs to first line physicians: therapeutists, pediatricians, and general practitioners. In this regard, higher school should reconsider afterdiploma training of doctors as well as search for and introduce the most resultive methods of training. The solution of this problem is associated with a range of difficulties, including those connected with contradictions in the development of medicine. The problem of continuous afterdiploma education is still topical and may be solved by the introduction of fractional full-time tuition, the use of self-training, and the development of distant training including the creation of modules of certain fields of the discipline under study.

[Antimicrobial properties of drinking mineral water in experiment]. / Antimikrobnye svoistva pit'evykh mineral'nykh vod v éksperimente.

We studied in vitro effects of mineral waters Ust-Kachkinskaya and Obukhovskaya on survival of gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria, candida fungi and on their sensitivity to antimicrobial drugs. The above mineral waters deteriorate viability of opportunistic bacterial and fungal flora and raise its sensitivity to antibiotics.

[Results of early rehabilitation after various methods of cholecystectomy at Ust'-Kachka resort]. / Rezul'taty rannei reabilitatsii posle razlichnykh variantov kholetsistéktomii na kurorte Ust'-Kachka.

Early rehabilitation after open cholecystectomy or cholecystectomy from a mini-approach was performed in 101 patients with cholelithiasis treated surgically at Ust-Kachka health resort. Changes in clinico-laboratory indices reflecting the condition of hepatopancreatobiliary system and central hemodynamics before and after rehabilitation were studied depending on the variant of cholecystectomy. Advantages of early rehabilitation of patients after different variants of cholecystectomy at Ust-Kachka health resort in normalization of general condition of the patients and in prevention of functional disorders progression early after operation are demonstrated.

[New methodological approaches to the use of the PHA reaction in determining anti-Shigella antibodies]. / Novye metodicheskie podkhody k ispol'zovaniiu RPGA pri opredelenii protivoshigelleznykh antitel.

Pronounced correlation between the titers of hemagglutinating antibodies to different types of shigellae and other bacteria in healthy persons and in sick persons of control groups has been established. On the basis of this regularity a new approach to the use of the passive hemagglutination test in shigellosis, taking into account the ratio of antibody titers to different Shigella types, has been developed. This essentially increases the sensitivity and specificity of the test, thus making it possible to standardize its evaluation and permitting the effective diagnosis of shigellosis from the onset of the disease.

[Clinico-pathogenetic characteristics of acute stenosis of the upper respiratory tract in children]. / Kliniko-patogeneticheskie osobennosti ostrykh stenozov verkhnikh dykhatel'nykh putei u detei.

All-round examinations of 484 patients with acute stenoses of the upper respiratory tract revealed two clinico-pathogenetic varieties of the disease: allergic (48.7%) and infectious-inflammatory (51.3%). All the patients demonstrated high allergy whatever the disease variety. The most important laboratory indicators of allergy were as follows: the rise of the index of eosinophilia, of the count of rosette-forming eosinophils in nasal secretion, a high content of total IgE and of allergen-specific IgE-antibodies, attesting to the presence of atopic allergy. These changes were more pronounced in the disease of allergic genesis. The differences in the pathogenesis should be necessarily taken into consideration during treatment administration. In the allergic disease variety, the main approach consists in administration of antihistaminic drugs in addition to the routine treatment measures, whereas in the infectious inflammatory variety, the treatment should also include antiviral agents.