Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to G Magni.
Tritiated imipramine binding to whole platelets was measured in sixteen chronic pain patients not suffering from major depression and in a control group. Maximum binding was significantly lower in chronic pain patients than in the control group, whereas the binding affinity was not significantly different.
Two groups of duodenal ulcer (DU) patients, responders and nonresponders, have been compared in order to verify if psychological factors are linked to relapse. Responders are defined as those patients who on endoscopy did not present proven relapse during treatment with maintenance doses of antisecretory drugs (cimetidine 400 mg/day, ranitidine 150 mg/day, pirenzepine 50 mg/day) for a period of 12 months after healing of the lesion. Nonresponders were all patients presenting with at least one relapse during treatment with antisecretory drugs. One hundred and twelve DU patients (81 responders, 31 nonresponders) were examined with the Cattell 16 Personality Factors Questionnaire (16PF) form C. There were no significant differences between the two groups for age, sex, duration of illness and type of drug treatment. The 16 PF scores of responders and nonresponders were not statistically different except in the case of factor E (dominance), in which the nonresponder subjects scored higher than responder subjects (p less than 0.01). However, when the significance level was corrected for the number of variables involved, the above finding is not considered to be meaningful.
The frequencies of DSM-III diagnoses in 30 patients with dyspepsia of unknown origin and 20 patients with organic dyspepsia were compared. Dyspepsia of unknown origin was associated with a higher prevalence of psychiatric diagnoses (86.7% versus 25.0%), particularly anxiety disturbances (66.7%).
The personality pattern of duodenal ulcer (DU) patients on maintenance treatment who relapsed (N = 22) was compared to a similar group who did not relapse (N = 57) using the Sixteen Personality Factors Questionnaire. Multivariate analysis of data indicated that a subgroup of DU patients with personality marked by dependent and anxiety traits was more prone to relapse of illness.
A preliminary study was carried out on a population of twenty-five consecutive and unselected patients undergoing carotid endarterectomy. A matched control group of subjects suffering from same pathology, but unoperated, was compared to experimental sample. A battery of neuropsychological tests, the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale and the Jachuck's Quality of Life Impairment Scale were administered one week before surgery, two weeks after (surgical sample only) and then eight months later. The research shows that carotid endarterectomy does not impair neuropsychological performances, but produces some improvement, reaching significant level in the case of Word Fluency 1 and Similarities tests; depressive scores remained substantially unchanged, while quality of life improved slightly.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
NAD pyrophosporylase has been purified to homogeneity from baker's yeast. The purification procedure is relatively simple and consists of high salt extraction of enzyme activity, precipitation with polyethylenimine followed by ion exchange and by ligand chromatography separations. The final enzyme preparation is homogeneous as judged by a single Coomassie blue-stainable band when run on non-denaturing and denaturating polyacrylamide gels. The native enzyme shows a molecular weight of about 200,000 calculated by gel filtration and sucrose gradient centrifugation. The protein possess quaternary structure and is composed by four apparently identical Mr 50,000 subunits. The absorption spectrum shows a maximum at 280 nm and a minimum at 253 nm. Isoelectric point is 6.2. Amino acid composition shows the presence of 28 half-cystine residues, in agreement with the results obtained by titrating the enzyme in denaturing conditions with Ellman's reagent upon previous incubation with sodium borohydride. NAD pyrophosphorylase is a glycoprotein containing 2% sugar, 2 moles of alkali-labile phosphate per enzyme mol, and 1 mol of adenine moiety per enzyme mol. Therefore the possibility that the enzyme is ADP-ribosylated exists. Km for ATP, NMN and NaMN are 0.11 mM, 0.19 mM and 5 mM respectively. Kinetic analysis reveals a behaviour which is consistent with an ordered sequential Bi-Bi mechanism. pH optimum is in the range 7.2-8.4.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Ninety-nine of 118 patients receiving cardiac valve replacements (n = 55) or coronary artery bypass grafts (n = 44) were studied before surgery and again one year after surgery. Psychological, social, and physical variables were assessed. For the 19 subjects not returning for follow-up, medical data collected by their general practitioner were available. The physical results of surgery were good, with over 90% of the patients showing improvement. Mean scores for psychological distress and quality of life improved; however, a bad psychosocial adjustment was present in about 25% of patients at follow-up. Bad psychosocial adjustment was not correlated with surgical results. The preoperative variables most predictive of poor psychosocial outcome were high scores in the general hypochondriasis and irritability subscales of the illness Behaviour Questionnaire, bad psychological adjustment characterized by high anxiety, depression, and global scores on the Symptom Distress Checklist, and ischemic rather than valvular heart disease.
A 54-year old man developed pancytopenia after receiving clomipramine for a major depressive episode with psychotic features. The discontinuation of the drug determined a significant improvement of the hematological picture.
Nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) adenylyltransferase has been purified to homogeneity from baker's yeast crude extract. The purification procedure is relatively simple and consists of high-salt extraction of enzyme activity and precipitation with poly(ethylenimine), followed by ion-exchange and dye ligand chromatography separations. The final enzyme preparation is homogeneous as judged by a single Coomassie blue stainable band when run on nondenaturating and denaturating polyacrylamide gels. The native enzyme shows a molecular weight of about 200 000, calculated by gel filtration and sucrose gradient centrifugation. The protein possesses quaternary structure and is composed of four apparently identical Mr 50 000 subunits. The absorption spectrum shows a maximum at 280 nm and a minimum at 253 nm. The isoelectric point is 6.2. Amino acid composition analysis shows the presence of 28 half-cystine residues. The same result has been obtained by titrating the enzyme in denaturating conditions with Ellman's reagent after incubation with sodium borohydride. NMN adenylyltransferase is a glycoprotein containing 2% sugar, 2 mol of alkali-labile phosphate per mole of enzyme, and 1 mol of adenine moiety per mole of enzyme. Therefore, the possibility that the enzyme is ADP-ribosylated exists. The Km values for ATP, NMN, and nicotinate mononucleotide are 0.11 mM, 0.19 nM, and 5 mM, respectively. Kinetic analysis reveals a behavior that is consistent with an ordered sequential Bi-Bi mechanism. The pH optimum is in the range 7.2-8.4.
Using the Middlesex Hospital Questionnaire (MHQ) and the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) psychological distress was measured in 30 women who underwent laparoscopy for chronic pelvic pain and in 30 matched controls. Both organic pelvic pain patients (OPPs) and idiopathic pelvic pain patients (IPPs) reported higher scores for somatisation than controls. IPPs scored higher than OPPs and controls on the Zung SDS, while no difference emerged in this scale between OPPs and controls. No correlations were found between age or duration of symptoms and somatisation and depression scores. On the basis of the above reported results the authors suggest that some forms of idiopathic chronic pelvic pain might represent an expression of a depressive disorder.
Uridine phosphorylase (EC 2.4.2.3) from Escherichia coli B is an oligomeric protein composed of four identical subunits of 29,000 mol. wt. The enzyme has four half-cystine residues per subunit titrable only in denaturing condition. No disulphide linkages either inter- or intra-chain are present. The isoelectric point is 5.25. The enzyme shows strict specificity toward uridine and 5-methyluridine and is inhibited by thymine, deoxycytidine and heavy metal ions.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
This paper presents an analysis of the impact of the psychiatric reform in Italy on health care delivery by the general practitioner. In an urban district of the Veneto region a survey was made on the opinions and assessments of the general practitioner about the new status of psychiatric care, on the psychiatric cases identified, and the correspondence between these opinions and assessments and the real delivery of psychiatric care. The pessimism about the psychiatric reform that emerges among some general practitioners seems to have more to do with the slow progress in creating intermediary facilities between hospital and region rather than an a priori opposition to the reform.
The frequency of an abnormal response to the dexamethasone suppression test (DST) was examined in 38 geriatric patients hospitalized for medical illnesses and affected by depressive disorders diagnosed according to the DSM III, and in 18 medical patients (used as controls) hospitalized in the same ward. Only 11% of the controls and 11% of those affected by dysthymic disorder had an abnormal DST vs 73% of the patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). The sensitivity of the DST for MDD, in this particular setting, was found to be about 73% and the specificity 89%. The importance of this clinical adjunct in diagnosing the severe depressive disorders is discussed.
The authors evaluated the psychological distress in 41 parents of children with acute lymphocytic leukaemia or with Hodgkin's disease using the Symptom Distress Checklist (SCL-90). The subjects were tested three times: within the first few days after the child's admission to hospital and 8 months and 20 months later. The experimental population was compared with a control group of 25 subjects matched for age, sex, marital status and social class. At the first evaluation the experimental group had higher mean scores than the controls for obsession, depression, anxiety and sleep disturbances. Seventy-eight % of the subjects (65.8% excluding the sleep disturbances (SlDi) subscale) scored moderate distress on at least one of the SCL-90 subscales. The 8 month and 20 month follow-ups confirmed the presence of high scores of psychological distress particularly in the sleep disturbances and depression subscales, with 78% (58.4% excluding SlDi) and 82.3% (70% excluding SlDi) of the subjects gaining scores of moderate distress in at least one of the subscales of the SCL-90.
The relationship between psychological distress and social support was evaluated in 26 parents of children with acute lymphocytic leukaemia during the diagnostic phase. The Symptom Distress Checklist and the Social Support Questionnaire were used. A high percentage of subjects reported a score of moderate psychological distress in four subscales of the Symptom Checklist: Obsessiveness-Compulsiveness (46 per cent), Depression (61.5 per cent), Anxiety (65 per cent) and Sleep Disturbances (57.5 per cent). Social support for parents was found to have a "buffering' effect on the impact of the stress occasioned by the diagnosis of acute lymphocytic leukaemia in a child.