Advanced fiberoptic catheters for coronary laser angioplasty.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to J Manni.
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Measures of height, weight, nonverbal cognitive ability (Ravens progressive matrix), visual-motor-perceptual ability (Beery-Buktenica test of Visual Motor Integration [VMI]), the imitation-of-gestures technique, and academic achievement (Stanford Early Achievement) were obtained for a sample of 82 children from a poor inner-city community. In contrast to prior reports from the United States and about other developed countries, anthropometric measures were related both to academic achievement and to these measures of neurodevelopment. They were not consistently related to measures of nonverbal cognitive ability. Regression analyses revealed that general cognitive ability contributed more variance (39%) to predictions of achievement than all other variables, including weight for age (13%) and VMI (6%). Children with reduced somatic growth were likely to do poorly in school, but the data do not show that undernutrition causes learning failure. Rather, they suggest that environmental problems affecting the development of thought processes and nutrient intake precede both growth and learning failure.
Complement (C) and circulating immune complexes (CIC) levels were measured in 22 full-term pregnant women and 15 of their small-for-gestational-age (SGA) offspring in order to seek evidence supporting an immunological etiology for placental lesions related to idiopathic intrauterine growth retardation. We used 19 normal full-term pregnant women and 18 of their infants with birthweight above the 25th centile of the ponderal curve as a control population for this study. C levels were significantly lower in mothers of SGA infants than in controls (146.6 +/- 46.6 and 183.6 +/- 36.6 respectively, p less than 0.01). CIC were present in the sera of 5 out of 22 mothers of the SGA group and in 3 out of the 15 infants sera. No CIC were found in the sera of mothers or infants from the control group. Placental lesions were observed in 14 out of the 22 (64%) cases studied in the SGA group and in 1 of 11 (9%) of the controls. Two placentas from SGA infants showed acute atherosclerosis, and deposits of IgM and C3 were found in their vessel walls. These data are in favor of an immunological mechanism for intrauterine growth retardation of unknown etiology.
Lesions of acute atherosis in 23 placentas from pregnancies complicated by fetal growth retardation (less than tenth percentile) were studied by an immunoperoxidase staining. Twelve of them were from normotensive pregnancies, ten complicated by pregnancy induced hypertension, and the remaining associated with systemic lupus erythematosus. Twenty-three placentas with physiological changes of the spiral arteries corresponding to normal pregnancies served as controls. Six of the cases complicated by fetal growth retardation showed absence of physiological changes in basal decidua. Massive intramural granular deposits of IgM, a smaller amount of C3 and C1q, and slight deposits of IgA and IgG were found in vessels with acute atherosis. No intramural deposition of immunoglobulins or complement was observed in vessels with or without physiological changes. The presence of granular deposits of immunoglobulins and complement within the vessel walls with acute atherosis may be related to an immunological disorder, probably mediated by immune complexes.
In pre-term infants, spontaneous otoacoustic emission (SOAE) frequencies show an upward shift with time. The present study aimed to monitor the SOAE amplitude variation during this frequency shift. A long-term observation of 87 SOAE frequencies from 18 pre-term infants yielded a positive frequency shift of 0.72 per cent per week, which was not accompanied by a simultaneous amplitude shift, as the mean variations in SOAE amplitude were practically zero. Furthermore, there was no relationship between the short-term SOAE amplitude variation and the infant's post-conceptional age. Only the absolute amount of SOAE amplitude variation seemed to grow with time. Comparison with induced variations in SOAE frequency argues against a middle ear influence on the SOAE frequency shift. In our view, the absence of any amplitude shift during the upward SOAE frequency shift further suggests cochlear development during the last period of gestation.
Normal and lupus PMN show an enhancement in superoxide production in vitro when stimulated with lupus serum. When N-formyl-methionyl-leucyl-phenylalanine (FMLP) was used, lupus PMN showed an O2- production of 2.1 nmol/min/10(7) cells, which is 5.2 times the response of normal PMN stimulated by FMLP. Our results show the existence of serum factors in SLE patients that can stimulate O2- production by PMN. Lupus neutrophils showed an increased response to membrane stimuli such as FMLP, capable of triggering the cell respiratory burst. Lupus neutrophils appeared more responsive to membrane stimuli. The serum and cellular factors seemed to indicate an increase rate of superoxide production by PMN in lupus patients, which could be relevant factors in the development of vasculitis and tissue damage.