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Biomedical subjects

B Morra

Publications and source records attributed to B Morra.

49 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
PubMedDate not supplied

[Orbital and endocranial complications in acute sinusitis in childhood].

Acute infection the paranasal sinus is a rather frequent pathology in children. On the contrary, local orbital complications are rare. The employment of antibiotics reduces the incidence of complications but can sometimes conceal their appearance so that diagnosis is delayed. Orbital as well as intracranial complications of ethmoidal and maxillary sinusitis are most often encountered in childhood. Within a brief time span, 8 patients with complicated frontal and ethmoid-maxillary sinusitis were diagnosed and treated: 4 cases of periorbital cellulitis, 2 of subperiorbital abscess and 2 of orbital abscess (one of which with cavernous sinus thrombosis). Particularly relevant from the diagnostic point of view was the employment of C.T. scan which furnished an accurate definition of the orbit and its surrounding structures which influenced treatment choice. Under antibiotic cover all patients but one (who had been treated very early and had responded immediately to intensive antibiotic therapy) were treated surgically and the clinical course of the disease showed significant improvement very shortly after surgical drainage.

Abscess↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Identification of the waveform of cortical auditory evoked potentials].

Slow vertex response (SVR) audiometry is presently one of the methods of choice in objective auditory threshold assessment. The aim of this study, carried out on twenty subjects with various degrees and types of hearing loss, was to evaluate the difficulties found in N1P2 complex identification. Tracings, presented as single averages and super-imposed averages, were examined separately by two Authors who had not been received any information concerning the audiometric thresholds of the subjects under investigation. Results showed that erroneous identification of SVR waveforms occurred frequently, especially near threshold level. The rate of false negatives (i.e. a waveform present but not identified) was higher than the rate of false positives (i.e. erroneous identification of a non-existing N1P2 complex). High intra- and interindividual discrepancies were also found. Our results appear to indicate that the SVR waveform is not easily identifiable and thus that SVR audiometry cannot, therefore, be considered a truly objective audiometric test since analysis of the tracings may be influenced by the high degree of variability in individual interpretation.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Relations between pure-tone audiometry and cortical evoked auditory potentials].

Slow vertex response (SVR) audiometry is presently one of the methods of choice in objective auditory threshold assessment. The aim of this study was to evaluate, as objectively possible, the relationship existing between the thresholds of SVR and or pure tone audiometry (PTA). The study was carried out on twenty subjects with hearing losses of various degrees and types. While mean differences between SVR and PTA thresholds ranged between 6 to 13 dB, in some cases values over 30 dB were found. No statistically significant intra- and interindividual discrepancies were found, even though in some cases the thresholds were given different in evaluations by different examiners. No statistically significant difference in SVR versus PTA thresholds was found in patients with sensory-neural and conductive hearing loss, while in subjects with normal hearing the difference between the thresholds was greater. Our results suggest that SVR is a reliable technique in objective threshold evaluation but that in single cases its threshold cannot be directly compared to that of pure tone audiometry.

Audiometry, Pure-Tone↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Prognostic significance of macrophage infiltration in laryngeal carcinoma].

We investigated the relationships between tumor associated macrofages (TAM) and tumor tissues and their possible prognostic significance in a laringeal carcinomas of patients operated in our Department for sovraglottic or total laringectomy. In our analysis we found a positive trend in Grade 3, but we could not find any correlations in the other cases. That shows that TAM have antithetic activities in the life of neoplasia.

Cell Movement↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Does an immune reactivity to human laryngeal cancer exist?].

Authors reconsider the present state of knowledge about immunology of laryngeal cancer. Authors, besides, analyse, in a critical way, problems concerning immunological monitoring of patients bearing solid carcinomas. They conclude that, up to date, it is impossible to have a biological test which can concretely show the patient's immune state.

Antigen-Antibody Reactions↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Evidence of suppressor activity mediated by concanavalin-A stimulated cells towards aspecific LIF production.

Since the T-suppressor subpopulation is known to have a peculiar sensitivity to the mitogenic activity of Concanavalin-A we decided to verify whether in normal subjects it was possible to induce, by using the Con-A as a mitogenic factor, the proliferation of cells--possibly T-suppressor--which: a) had the property of adherence and b) show inhibitory activity toward LIF production. The statistical analysis of the results of our experimental patterns show that even if a difference between the suppression exerted on LIF production by Con-A stimulated versus not stimulated cells is present at any dilution, the level of significance rises from P less than 0.005 to P less than 0.0001 for the range of dilution 1:1/4 to 1:132, thus revealing that these experimental conditions are optimal for eliciting the blocking effect. The researches that are currently in progress in our laboratory seem to suggest that this experimental approach is of some value in characterizing the immunity pattern of laryngeal cancer patients and its evolution through the course of disease.

Cell Adhesion↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Evaluation of the immune responsiveness in laryngeal cancer patients with specific and aspecific tests: first results of follow-up in 80 cases.

We have evaluated in 80 patients suffering with laryngeal carcinoma their specific and aspecific immune responsiveness. We used the E rosette-test, the PHA-induced in vitro stimulation and the in vitro specific LIF production. We chose to use the LIF production test both for its marked sensitivity and because the lymphokines--which are soluble mediators--act as a "bridge" between the different fields of the immune response. Furthermore in our previous research, we observed that the specific LIF production was influenced in a negative way by adherent cells of the peripheral blood that could behave as blocking factors. For what attains the autologous LIF production, before and after the removal of adherent cells, our results show that the patients suffering with a cancer staged as T3T4N1N2N3 exhibit much more marked blocking phenomena than the patients with a cancer staged as T1T2T3N0. In fact the results demonstrate that in this second group only 62% of the cases, after the removal of the adherent cells, showed an increase of LIF production, while this percentage rose to 83% for the patients with a more advanced disease. A similar pattern was found in those patients who showed a recurrence two of three years after the primary disease.

Humans↗