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Biomedical subjects

J M Mantz

Publications and source records attributed to J M Mantz.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

[Pulmonary toxicity of oxygen].

Recent progress in artificial ventilation procedures sheds doubt on the toxicity of oxygen in the lung. Histological studies of the lung by light and electron microscopy were made in rats exposed to 100% oxygen at 1 ATA in spontaneous ventilation. The results are compared with the lesions observed in 19 human patients suffering from acute respiratory distress syndrome and with the data on retinopathy of prematurity. This study suggests to keep in mind that oxygen may, as well as infections or baro-traumatic factors, be involved in causing or aggravating lung fibrosis. The complexity of the mechanisms of this action is emphasized. The production of highly reactive free radicals is one of the essential factors of this aggression. These elements illustrate the value of further studies on ways of preventing these changes, especially using appropriate antioxidant molecules.

Animals↗

[Perinatal maternal emergencies].

The perinatal period (from the 28th week of pregnancy to the 28th day after delivery) is a short but special period which endangers the mother's and child's life. There has been no elective statistical assessment of this period but surveys conducted in western countries show that most of the maternal emergencies requiring admission to an intensive care unit are actually those of the perinatal period; some are specific of pregnancy: gravidic toxemia, delivery hemorrhage, acute fatty liver of pregnancy; others such as septic or embolic shock, cardiomyopathy, are found also in non-pregnant women but are favored by pregnancy. Among the numerous eventualities it was necessary to take a selection: ours results from three sorts of considerations: i) the severity of some of these perinatal emergencies: preeclampsia, eclampsia, Hellp syndrome, subcapsula hepatic rupture, septic or hemorrhagic shock are among the most serious ones; ii) the high frequency of some of them: post partum hemorrhage is, in France, the first cause of maternal mortality and the second cause of maternal morbidity whereas infection which can bring a septic shock is found to complicate one to eight per cent of the deliveries; iii) several emergency conditions raise pathophysiological problems which are still not entirely solved, for instance, gravidic toxemia, acute fatty liver of pregnancy, amniotic embolism. They will be especially studied here. Maternal perinatal emergencies remain a major public health problem. It is a necessity to realize the importance of the stakes, to encourage a team spirit, to combine the abilities of obstetricians, intensive care physicians, anaesthesists, echographists, biologists, so that this race against time can be won.

Emergencies↗

Muscle regeneration after exercise-induced myoglobinuria: an electron microscopic study.

Muscle regeneration was studied by light and electron microscopy in a case of exercise-induced acute myoglobinuria in a young patient with carnitine-palmityl-transferase deficiency. Various stages of regeneration existed in the foci of necrosis scattered throughout apparently normal muscle. Activated satellite cells, myoblasts and myotubes were found, some of them containing myofibrils. Among the cells accumulating in the necrotic fibres, some apparently contained surviving myonuclei. In some fibres of normal size, developing myofibrils were abundant. Surviving myonuclei may be of significance in the reaction of muscle cells after injury.

Child, Preschool↗

[Duodenal perforations by the hooks of a Kimray-Greenfield filter].

A case is reported of a duodenal perforation by a Kimray-Greenfield filter hook in a 66-year-old female patient. This device had been inserted four years before, after a pulmonary embolism. The patient presented with epigastric pain, vomiting and extracellular dehydration with renal failure. A plain abdominal film showed the filter to be tilted 15 degrees to the left, with an opening 28 mm wide. Various investigations were carried out, none of which providing a satisfactory diagnosis. Steroid treatment (1 mg.kg-1 x day-1 of prednisone) was started before admission to intensive care. Only at that time gastroduodenoscopy showed on of the filter's hooks jutting through the duodenal wall. This perforation was located in the posterior wall of the third part of the duodenum, and was associated with an ulcer of the mucosa facing this hook. The diagnosis was confirmed by an abdominal CT scan. The hook was cut and the perforation sealed off during a first laparotomy. Twenty-six days later, the patient developed intestinal obstruction due to a haematoma of the jejunal wall. She later had a cerebrovascular accident, with status epilepticus and deep coma. She died four months after her admission. The late complications of vena caval filters are discussed. The position of these devices should be regularly checked by a plain abdominal film. Abdominal CT scanning is a useful investigation for the diagnosis of intra and extravascular complications.

Aged↗

Vascular and myofibrillar lesions in acute myoglobinuria associated with carnitine-palmityl-transferase deficiency.

A case of severe exercise-induced myoglobinuria in a 14-year-old boy suffering from a carnitine-palmityl-transferase (CPT) defect is reported. Biopsies of the forearm muscle were examined using light and electron microscopy in the acute and recovery phases of the illness. The first biopsy showed the presence of scattered foci of necrosis where necrotic fibres with occasional disruptions of the basal lamina were seen around injured capillaries. Various degrees of damage and different stages of evolution were found in these foci, which also contained regenerating muscle fibres. In the second biopsy, performed 2 weeks later, most of the fibres displayed a normal structure. Necrosis was no longer present. However, in some areas perivascular fibrosis was prominent, the fibres were small and irregularly shaped, and their nuclei often centrally located. These data strongly suggest that circulatory disorders and ischaemia, brought about by premature acute metabolic imbalance, could be involved in the development of exercise-induced myolysis observed in CPT deficiency. The risk of fibrous cardiomyopathy in these patients is pointed out.

Acute Disease↗

[Sleep disorders and use of psychotropic drugs in 6-year-old children].

The purpose of this prospective survey, conducted over a two years period, was to study the use of psychoactive drugs among six year-old children in the Bas-Rhin administrative "département", of eastern France. The factors analysed were family environment, after-school time, the child's sleep, the locality where the child lived and the drugs used. The child was examined by school doctors, in the presence of the parents, at the compulsory consultation at the start of first-year infant school. The study was exhaustive. Of the 11,274 children examined, 12.1% used a psychoactive drug, although only 1% were considered by their parents to be suffering from insomnia. Of the children using drugs, 32% had used them for more than a year, 24% for more than two years and 11% for more than three years. Consumption was also shown to vary greatly between different localities; in some areas the proportion of children using drugs was more than 50%.

Child↗

Pulsed field gel electrophoresis as a new epidemiological tool for monitoring methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in an intensive care unit.

Pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) of bacterial DNA was used in a 1-month epidemiological study of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in a 15-bed Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Patient and hospital staff carriage as well as distribution of MRSA in the ICU environment were investigated, and a total of 3802 samples produced 175 isolates. The stability and the reproducibility of the PFGE method were satisfactory. Moreover, the plasmid content of the strains so far examined had no influence on the PFGE profiles of the MRSA strains. The polymorphic profiles observed also account for the use of this method as an epidemiological tool for investigating MRSA. Among 30 patients who stayed more than 4 days in the unit, PFGE analysis showed 11 episodes of colonization in nine patients, whereas lysotyping and plasmid DNA analysis demonstrated only eight and seven such episodes in the same patients, respectively. The combination of PFGE with lysotyping and plasmid analysis may provide a greater discriminatory capacity between MRSA isolates.

Bacteriophage Typing↗

[Two years' experience teaching medical ethics in a hospital clinic course].

Ethics problems arise from conflict of values: a physician has to take charge of his patients, but advances of sciences and technics make such conflicts more and more frequent. Their solution cannot be left to a mere improvization. Medical ethics have to be taught. In Strasbourg, we have elected to teach compulsory medical ethics in the course of compulsory hospital training, for five mornings running, to groups of ten fifth-year medical students, the place being different each day. Fifteen departments including five specialties, internal medicine, intensive care, pediatrics, gynecology-obstetrics, geriatrics, are involved in this experience. The training takes place near the patient bed in the presence of a medical teacher. Communication and multi-disciplinarity are the characteristics. The teaching is done with the purpose of bringing about reflection in the students, of proposing methods for the discovering and the approach of ethics problems, of leading the students up to the enlightenment of their own scale of evaluation. A few previous lectures about history of ethics through different philosophical systems, about social, economical and cultural implications, are given for basic formation of the students. This teaching experience interests students and teachers greatly. The first ones have the opportunity to perceive a new dimension of medical responsibility, the second ones appreciate this form of recovered fellowship.

Education, Medical↗

Acute mercury chloride intoxication. Effects of hemodialysis and plasma exchange on mercury kinetic.

A 27 year-old man developed after ingestion of mercury chloride, 6 g, a hypovolemic shock, an acute renal failure and a necrosis of the stomach which required a total gastrectomy. The anuria did not improve and required 42 hemodialyses. Subsequent evolution showed numerous complications and the patient died on the 91st day. On admission mercury plasma concentration was 5 mg/L and decreased slowly with an apparent half-life of 226 hours. Hemodialyses were ineffective for mercury elimination: mercury clearances varied between -10 and + 1.5 ml/min. Seventeen mg of mercury were removed by six plasma exchanges: the mercury clearance was mean 17.3 ml/min. Among the extracorporeal elimination methods, plasma exchange appears to be the most efficient for inorganic mercury and it could be usefull in association with chelation therapy at the early phase of the intoxication.

Acute Kidney Injury↗

[Immunoallergic intravascular hemolysis and tubulointerstitial nephritis due to penicillin G].

A 51-year old woman treated with high doses of penicillin G developed acute intravascular haemolysis and tubulointerstitial nephritis. Immunological investigations showed circulating immune complexes, decreased C3 and C4 components of complement, IgG deposits in the renal interstitium, positive direct Coombs test with anti-IgG sera and complement and circulating anti-penicillin antibodies demonstrated by indirect antiglobulin tests and IgG RAST. Plasma haemoglobin and anti-penicillin antibodies could be removed by an early exsanguino-transfusion. These findings suggest that the nephritis was due to immune complexes and the haemolysis, to a combined hapten-type and immune complex mechanism.

Anemia, Hemolytic, Autoimmune↗

Haemodynamic studies in eight cases of acute colchicine poisoning.

1 The authors performed haemodynamic studies in 8 cases of colchicine poisoning. The doses absorbed ranged between 9 and 160 mg (mean dose 39 mg). THe haemodynamic study was performed between the 6th and 72nd h after intoxication, before and after plasma infusion (370 ml over a period of 20 minutes). 2 Four patients had severe shock with decreased cardiac index (CI) and increased sytsemic vascular resistance (SVR). Four patients had a hyperkinetic state with increased CI and decreased SVR. The four patients with cardiac failure died, the others recovered. 3 Haemodynamic study of acute colchicine poisoning is of therapeutic and prognostic interest. Hypovolaemia is always present. An initial decrease of cardiac performance is an index of severity with a lethal outcome.

Adolescent↗