Digital Commons Network^™

Com Outlook Spring 2005, College Of Osteopathic Medicine

COM Outlook

No abstract provided.

Effect Of Serum And Cumulus Cell Expansion On Marker Gene Transcripts In Bovine Cumulus-Oocyte Complexes During Maturation In Vitro., Michele D Calder, Anita N Caveney, Marc-Andre Sirard, Andrew J Watson

Obstetrics & Gynaecology Publications

OBJECTIVE: To determine the distribution of transcripts encoding the FSH receptor (FSHr), LH receptor (LHr), connexin 43 (Cx43), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), and prostaglandin E(2) receptors 2 and 3 (EP2 and EP3) within bovine cumulus-oocyte complexes (COCs) and denuded oocytes and investigate the influence of gonadotropins, serum, and cumulus cell expansion on the abundance of transcripts encoding these genes.

DESIGN: Prospective controlled animal study.

SETTING: University research laboratory.

PATIENT(S): Animal models for human studies.

INTERVENTION(S): Cumulus-oocyte complexes were treated in culture with serum and gonadotropin-supplemented media to examine the effects to mRNA transcript levels.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Variation in mRNA transcript levels. …

Bench-To-Bedside Review: Rhabdomyolysis -- An Overview For Clinicians., Ana L Huerta-Alardín, Joseph Varon, Paul E Marik

Jefferson Hospital Staff Papers and Presentations

Rhabdomyolysis ranges from an asymptomatic illness with elevation in the creatine kinase level to a life-threatening condition associated with extreme elevations in creatine kinase, electrolyte imbalances, acute renal failure and disseminated intravascular coagulation. Muscular trauma is the most common cause of rhabdomyolysis. Less common causes include muscle enzyme deficiencies, electrolyte abnormalities, infectious causes, drugs, toxins and endocrinopathies. Weakness, myalgia and tea-colored urine are the main clinical manifestations. The most sensitive laboratory finding of muscle injury is an elevated plasma creatine kinase level. The management of patients with rhabdomyolysis includes early vigorous hydration.

Oncolog, Volume 50, Number 04, April 2005, Rachel Williams, Ellen Mcdonald, Michael Fisch Md, Mph

OncoLog MD Anderson's Report to Physicians (All issues) Archives

• Harnessing the Immune System: The Promise and Potential of Cancer Vaccines
• Considering Prophylactic Surgery
• House Call: Chemotherapy and Hair Loss
• DiaLog: Redefining Success in Cancer Care, by Michael Fisch, MD, MPH, Medical Director, Community Clinical Oncology Program

Emergency Physicians' Practices And Attitudes Regarding Procedural Anaesthesia For Nasogastric Tube Insertion., G A. Juhl, Gregory P. Conners

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

OBJECTIVE: To determine practice and attitudes of emergency physicians regarding procedural anaesthesia for nasogastric tube insertion (NGT).

METHODS: Survey of resident/attending emergency physicians working in a tertiary care medical centre.

RESULTS: Of 68 physicians, 46 responded: 98% believed that awake and alert patients find NGT insertion uncomfortable/painful; 93% used measures to reduce this, most commonly lubricant gel, topical anaesthetic spray, lidocaine gel, and distraction/use of a child life worker; 28% believed these provided adequate pain control and 37% believed they were inadequate. Topical anaesthetic spray, lidocaine gel, and nebulised/atomised anaesthetics were believed the most practical to administer and 44% actually …

The Effects Of Greater Occipital Nerve Block And Trigger Point Injection On Brush Allodynia And Pain In Migraine, Avi Ashkenazi, William B. Young

Department of Neurology Faculty Papers

Objective: To evaluate the effect of GONB, with or without trigger point injection (TPI), on dynamical mechanical (brush) allodynia (BA) and on head pain in migraine.

Background: Patients with migraine often have cutaneous allodynia, which is related to sensitization of central pain neurons. Greater occipital nerve block (GONB) is an effective treatment for migraine headache, however its effect on cutaneous allodynia in migraine is unknown.

Methods: We studied patients with migraine and BA who were treated with GONB with or without TPI. Demographic data, migraine history and headache features were documented. Allodynia was evaluated using a structured …

The Antitumor Agent, Arglabin-Dma, Preferentially Induces Apoptosis In Human Colon Tumor Cells, Sung Wook Kwon

Theses and Dissertations in Biomedical Sciences

Arglabin-DMA, an analog of farnesyl pyrophosphate (FPP), reportedly inhibits farnesyltransferase (FTase) directly by competitively blocking the binding of Ras protein and its posttranslational modification, as suggested in previous studies. But, the mechanisms by which Arglabin-DMA inhibits tumor growth in vivo and in vitro are still relatively poorly characterized. To determine the mechanism by which this drug inhibits tumor growth, the effects of Arglabin-DMA in two human colon tumor cell lines (mutant K-ras HCT 116 and wild-type ras HT-29) were explored on cell proliferation, apoptosis, and cell cycle kinetics in vitro. In cell viability studies, we showed that Arglabin-DMA …

Mechanisms Of Cell Death Initiated In Herpes Simplex Virus Thymidine Kinase Expressing Colon Tumor Cells Treated With Ganciclovir And Ucn-01, Christina Elizabeth Ahn

Theses and Dissertations in Biomedical Sciences

Metastatic colon carcinoma is the second leading cause of death from malignancy in the United States, and development of more effective treatments is essential. Heterologous expression of Herpes Simplex Virus Thymidine Kinase (HSVtk) in combination with the prodrug, ganciclovir (GCV), has shown great promise for the genetic therapy of many cancers, but most patients have had only a partial or minimal response to the therapy. After screening a panel of two drug combinations, our laboratory has shown that the combination of GCV and the protein kinase inhibitor UCN-01 (7-hydroxystaurosporine) enhances tumor cell death more effectively than either drug alone. However …

James Jarell “Jake” Pickle And Clifford Drummond Oral History Interview, March 15, 2005, James "Jake" Jarrell Pickle, Clifford Drummond, Lesley W. Brunet, Earl Walborg

Interview Sessions

Major Topics Covered:

• Sources of land for MD Anderson Research Park in Smithville and Bastrop, Texas
• Legislators and others instrumental in advocating in the Legislature
• R. Lee Clark’s vision for a research facility; personal motives for locating the facility outside of Houston
• Local and governmental considerations in approving land for a laboratory

Medical Education Digest, Vol. 7 No. 2 (March/April 2005), Nova Southeastern University

Medical Education Digest

No abstract provided.

Clinical Characteristics Of Individuals Using An Online Alcohol Evaluation Program., Daniel Z Lieberman

Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Faculty Publications

Access to treatment for substance abuse disorders is limited, and practical strategies are needed to expand opportunities for individuals to receive effective interventions. Automated or semi-automated treatments have shown promise in other disorders. Identifying the characteristics of patients who will be able to benefit from this unconventional approach will increase the likelihood of success. The current study examined 1,297 individuals using an online alcohol evaluation program. Subjects had high scores on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and a substantial amount of ambivalence about the possible harm that their drinking caused, but they also had very low levels of …

Gas-Producing Brain Abscess, Arshad A. Siddiqui, Khalid N. Chishti

Section of Neurosurgery

A case of a known psychiatric patient who presented with rapid neurological deterioration is reported. Neuroimaging revealed a gas-producing brain abscess in left parietal lobe with a contiguous focus of infection in the adjacent bone and scalp initiated by obsessive scalp scratching. On complete surgical excision of abscess, followed by culture-based antibiotic therapy, a good neurological recovery was achieved with minimal residual deficits at follow-up.

Variability In Lipid Profile Before And After Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting (Cabg), M Perwaiz Iqbal, Hasanat Mohammad Sharif, Naseema Mehboobali

Department of Biological & Biomedical Sciences

Objective: To investigate changes in total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, and triglycerides in serum of Pakistani patients before, immediately after and 5 days post CABG.
Method: Serum samples from 31 consecutive Pakistani angina patients undergoing CABG at the Aga Khan University Hospital were analyzed for total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol and triglycerides using kit methods.
Results: Immediately after CABG, there is a significant decline in the mean levels of serum cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol and triglycerides. However, 5 days post CABG, there is a significant increase in the concentrations of total …

Vital Signs, Spring 2005, Boonshoft School Of Medicine

Vital Signs

A twenty-eight page newsletter created by the Boonshoft School of Medicine to document the current affairs of the school. This issue includes a variety of feature articles, alumni and faculty profiles, class notes, and more.

Digest Of The Philadelphia College Of Osteopathic Medicine (Spring 2005), Philadelphia College Of Osteopathic Medicine

Digest

The Spring 2005 issue of the Digest of the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine includes the following articles:

• Opening Remarks
• PCOM Updates and Kudos
• The Courage to Change Lives
• ALS Research: Surveying the Quality of Devastated Lives
• Class Notes
• In Memoriam
• My Turn
• PCOM Events

Attributional Styles Of Women Who Quit Or Reduce Smoking In The Antepartum, Patricia T. Alpert

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Background: Researchers in the field of smoking have sought to identify variables that predict whether or not pregnant smokers stop or continue to smoke. Most variables examined are demographic in nature and little is known about psychological variables associated with those who quit or reduce smoking while pregnant.

Purpose: To analyze attributional style and locus of control to determine which factors alone, or in combination, are associated with quitting versus reduced smoking among pregnant smokers.

Methodology: Pregnant smokers who quit (n = 66) or reduced their smoking (n = 43) were identified by the nursing staff at a women’s county …

Screening For Diseases In Family Practice, Ali Khan Khuwaja, Nadya Khan Khuwaja

Department of Family Medicine

The active check-over for disease among apparently healthy people is a fundamental aspect of prevention. This is perceivable by screening, which is a search of unrecognized disease or condition by means of rapidly applied test, examination or other procedures in apparently healthy individuals. This is carried out in the hope that earlier diagnosis and subsequent management favorably alters the natural history of the disease in a significant proportion of those who are identified as 'test-positive'. Family Practitioners have privilege to provide comprehensive and holistic health care services including preventive, curative and rehabilitative on continuous and long-term basis to all members …

Olfactory Neuroblastoma: A Case Report And Review Of The Literature, Shehzad Ghaffar, Iftikhar Salahuddin

Section of Otolaryngology, Head & Neck Surgery

Malignant tumors of the nasal cavity are rare. We report the case of an elderly woman who consulted us with a 4-year history of progressive nasal obstruction, occasional epistaxis, facial pain, and watering of the eyes. A diagnosis of olfactory neuroblastoma was established by histopathology and confirmed by immunohistochemistry. On staging, the mass was classified as a Kadish stage B tumor. The mass was excised via a lateral rhinotomy approach, and the tumor was peeled away completely from the cribriform plate with endoscopes. The patient underwent postoperative radiation, and she was free of recurrence at follow-up 15 months later.

Psychomotor Skills For The Undergraduate Medical Curriculum In A Developing Country--Pakistan, Rashida Ahmed, Zoon Naqvi, Ineke Wolfhagen

Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

Objective: To identify essential psychomotor skills for all the medical graduates of an undergraduate programme in Pakistan.
Materials and Methods: Twenty-five physicians practising in a tertiary care centre and ninety primary care physicians used a Likert's scale, ranging from "very essential" to"not required at all", to mark 99 psychomotor skills in the undergraduate medical curriculum in Pakistan.
Results: Overall the opinions of both the groups about the essential skills matched except for a few areas.
Conclusion: This study provides baseline data about psychomotor skills that a medical graduate in developing countries should be able to perform. Further studies will be …

Hemorrhagic Corpus Luteum Mimicking Heterotopic Pregnancy, Saba Sohail

Department of Radiology

Hemorrhagic corpus luteum (CL) is clinically known to simulate a number of medical, surgical and gynecologic conditions that cause acute abdomen. One such case is hereby presented that mimicked ectopic pregnancy clinically and heterotopic pregnancy on ultrasound. Laparoscopy was decisive.

A Case Of Non-Resolving Cough And Weight Loss., Omer Ashraf, Ali Bin Sarwar Zubairi, Fawad Aslam, Kashif Ashraf, Suhail Muzaffar

Department of Medicine

Sarcoidosis is a chronic granulomatous multi-system disease with a clinical picture often mimicking tuberculosis. We present a case of a patient who presented with a clinical picture akin to both of these granulomatous disorders and was started on anti-tuberculous regimen despite the lack of any solid evidence pointing towards tuberculosis. As a result her clinical condition continued to deteriorate for months until finally a bronchoscopic biopsy established her disease process as sarcoidosis. She was then started on systemic corticosteroid therapy for sarcoidosis and during the ensuing period has shown marked improvement in her clinical picture with near normalization of the …

Involvement Of Beta-Chemokines In The Development Of Inflammatory Demyelination., Ileana Banisor, Thomas P Leist, Bernadette Kalman

Department of Neurology Faculty Papers

The importance of beta-chemokines (or CC chemokine ligands - CCL) in the development of inflammatory lesions in the central nervous system of patients with multiple sclerosis and rodents with experimental allergic encephalomyelitis is strongly supported by descriptive studies and experimental models. Our recent genetic scans in families identified haplotypes in the genes of CCL2, CCL3 and CCL11-CCL8-CCL13 which showed association with multiple sclerosis. Complementing the genetic associations, we also detected a distinct regional expression regulation for CCL2, CCL7 and CCL8 in correlation with chronic inflammation in multiple sclerosis brains. These observations are in consensus with previous studies, and add new …

Defective B Cell Responses In The Absence Of Sh2d1a, Massimo Morra, Robert A. Barrington, Ana C. Abadia-Molina, Susumo Okamoto, Aimee Julien, Charles A. Gullo Phd, Anuj Kalsy, Matthew J. Edwards, Gang Chen, Rosanne Spolski, Warren J. Leonard, Brigitte T. Huber, Persephone Borrow, Christine A. Biron A. Biron, Abhay R. Satoskar, Michael C. Carroll, Cox Terhorst

Biochemistry and Microbiology

More than half of patients with X-linked lympho-proliferative disease, which is caused by a defect in the intracellular adapter protein SH2D1A, suffer from an extreme susceptibility to Epstein-Barr virus. One-third of these patients, however, develop dysgammaglobulenemia without an episode of severe mononucleosis. Here we show that in SH2D1A-/- mice, both primary and secondary responses of all Ig subclasses are severely impaired in response to specific antigens. Because germinal centers were absent in SH2D1A-/- mice upon primary immunization, and because SH2D1A was detectable in wt germinal center B cells, we examined whether SH2D1A-/- B cell functions were impaired. Using the adoptive …

Quantitative 1h Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopic Imaging Determines Therapeutic Immunization Efficacy In An Animal Model Of Parkinson's Disease., Michael D. Boska, Travis B. Lewis, Christopher J. Destache, Eric J. Benner, Jay A. Nelson, Mariano Uberti, R. Lee Mosley, Howard Gendelman

Journal Articles: Radiology

Nigrostriatal degeneration, the pathological hallmark of Parkinson's disease (PD), is mirrored by 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) intoxication. MPTP-treated animals show the common behavioral, motor, and pathological features of human disease. We demonstrated previously that adoptive transfer of Copaxone (Cop-1) immune cells protected the nigrostriatal dopaminergic pathway in MPTP-intoxicated mice. Herein, we evaluated this protection by quantitative proton magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging (1H MRSI). 1H MRSI performed in MPTP-treated mice demonstrated that N-acetyl aspartate (NAA) was significantly diminished in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc) and striatum, regions most affected in human disease. When the same regions were coregistered with immunohistochemical stains for …

Patient Characteristics And Clinical Management Of Patients With Shoulder Pain In U.S. Primary Care Settings: Secondary Data Analysis Of The National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, James L. Wofford, Richard J. Mansfield, Raquel S. Watkins

Dartmouth Scholarship

Although shoulder pain is a commonly encountered problem in primary care, there are few studies examining its presenting characteristics and clinical management in this setting. We performed secondary data analysis of 692 office visits for shoulder pain collected through the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (Survey years 1993–2000). Information on demographic characteristics, history and place of injury, and clinical management (physician order of imaging, physiotherapy, and steroid intraarticular injection) were examined.

Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Presenting As Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome: A Case Report, Malik Anas Rabbani, Bushra Ahmad, Sabeen Fatima Mekan, Suhail Muzaffar, Syed Sohail Ali

Section of Pulmonary & Critical Care

Associating systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), with an initial presentation of hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) is rare. We report a case of 21-year old Afghani female admitted to our hospital with an initial complaint of high grade fever and diffuse maculopapular rash and swelling of lower limbs. Diagnosis of atypical HUS was established according to the clinical triad of HUS without a veriotoxin-producing organism in her stool and the pathological finding compatible to thrombotic microangiopathy. In addition, her symptoms fulfilled the 1982 revised criteria for the classification of SLE. After pulse methylprednisolone, cyclophosphamide and plasmapheresis therapies, her laboratory findings and general …

Clinical And Echocardiographic Characteristics Of Patients With Significant Pericardial Effusion Requiring Pericardiocentesis, Ata Ur Rehman Quraishi, Arif Anis Khan, Khawar Abbas Kazmi, Syed Muhammad Najaf, M Najib Basir, Azam Shafquat, Fahim Jafary, Sajid Dhakan

Section of Cardiology

Objective: Clinical and echocardiographic features of significant pericardial effusion (PE) have been reported from the west. Currently there is lack of published data from this part of the world, we reviewed all consecutive cases of significant PE requiring echocardiographic assisted pericardiocentesis to analyze the clinical and echocardiographic features of these patients.Methods: Forty four consecutive patients who underwent echocardiography assisted pericardiocentesis at the Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) between January 1988 and May 2001" re included in this review.Results: Most common presenting symptoms were dyspnea (89%) and fever (36%). Elevated JVP and pulsus paradoxus were documented in 59% and 41% of …

Multiple Parameters In The Diagnosis Of Ectopic Pregnancy, Iram Naseem, Vaqar Bari, Naila Nadeem

Department of Radiology

Objective: To determine the role of emergency ultrasound examination in the diagnosis and management of ectopic pregnancy.Methods: A descriptive study done at the Radiology Department, Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi from January 1999 to December 2000 using observational facts by non-probability convenient sampling method. Seventy one patients who presented with acute symptoms in early pregnancy, were subjected to emergency pelvic ultrasound. Both transabdominal and transvaginal ultrasound were done in 52 patients while in 19 patients only transabdominal ultrasound was performed. Serum Beta hCG levels, of all patients were greater than 1500 iu/ml.Results: Ultrasound correctly identified ectopic pregnancy in 71 patients. …

Oncolog, Volume 50, Number 02/03, February/March 2005, David Galloway

OncoLog MD Anderson's Report to Physicians (All issues) Archives

• Biostatistically Speaking
• Novel Drugs Address Gleevec Resistance
• Obesity: A Weighty Contributor to Cancer
• House Call: When a Friend Has Cancer

Re-Emphasizing The Publication Ethics, Saba Sohail, Jamshed Akhtar

Department of Radiology

No abstract provided.