Annals of clinical research
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The accuracy of primary diagnosis made by general practitioners and paediatric house officers was assessed from a nationwide series of 130 Finnish children with bacterial meningitis. Meningitis was diagnosed at the first medical examination in 76 (58%) of the cases (32/70, 46% at physician's office versus 44/60 (73%) in hospital emergency rooms; p less than 0.005). In 44 cases (34%), there was a time lapse (mean, 1.7 days) between the first examination and the diagnosis of bacterial meningitis. ⋯ The overall mortality rate was 5/130 (4%) and the frequency of neurological sequelae was 28/130 (22%). The existence of potentially avoidable diagnostic delay in childhood bacterial meningitis was confirmed. Means of avoiding such potentially disastrous delay were discussed briefly.
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Using the formulae of Fazio and coworkers, the regional extravascular lung water per blood volume and flow was calculated in normal volunteers, in patients with left heart failure, sarcoidosis, allergic alveolitis and pneumonia. The double-isotope technique was used. 113mIn-chloride was intravascular tracer and 123I-antipyrine extravascular tracer. They were injected intravenously as rapid bolus. ⋯ The cardiac group was also divided into three subgroups after radiological grading of pulmonary venous hypertension. Between GR I (n = 17) without signs of venous hypertension and GR II (n = 18) with signs of venous congestion no significant differences in regional extravascular lung water were found. However, in GR I and GR II the values for regional extravascular water increased when compared to the control group, which is probably due to increased perfusion of vessels or increased blood volume in these cardiac patients.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
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Non-suppression of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical activity on the dexamethasone suppression test was found in 27/115 patients who were referred to consulting psychiatrists in the Psychiatric Outpatient Clinic of Turku University Central Hospital and in the Rehabilitation Research Centre because of unspecific chronic pain complaints. Depressive symptoms in the patients were identified by the Research Diagnostic Criteria for definite or probable endogenous and non-endogenous depressive disorders. The cortisol levels after dexamethasone suppression were significantly higher in endogenous than in non-endogenous patients and it uncovered masked depression in some complex patients. However, nonsuppression in the dexamethasone suppression test was not specifically associated with the pain-prone disorder, which was further characterized by the factor models of the Hamilton Depression Scale.
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In order to determine the fluidity of erythrocyte membrane ghosts the degree of random orientation of excited diphenylhexatriene molecules (anisotropy) was examined in normal and diabetic juveniles. A small but significant enhancement of diphenylhexatriene anisotropy was observed in diabetic erythrocyte membranes when compared with control (0.184 +/- 0.013 versus 0.152 +/- 0.010). ⋯ Linear relationships were seen between glycosylated hemoglobin and glycosylated membrane proteins (r = 0.767) as well as between glycosylated haemoglobin and membrane anisotropy (r = 0.741). We suggest that membrane protein glycosylation enhancement occurring in diabetes could be one of the reasons of the lowered diabetic erythrocyte membrane fluidity.