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Biomedical subjects

M E Santos

Publications and source records attributed to M E Santos.

5 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1992

Clinical significance of immunoglobulin A versus immunoglobulins G and M anti-cardiolipin antibodies in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus. Correlation with thrombosis, thrombocytopenia, and recurrent abortion.

Serum levels of immunoglobulins (Ig) A, G, and M anti-cardiolipin (aCL) antibodies were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in a group of selected systemic lupus erythematosus female patients. Patients were divided into three groups based on their clinical history of thrombosis with or without thrombocytopenia (group I), thrombocytopenia alone (group II), and neither of these (group III). After the aCL antibody levels were determined, the patients' obstetric histories of pregnancies and abortions were reviewed. A high incidence of one or more abortions was seen only in group I patients. A high prevalence of elevated levels of IgA and IgG (but not IgM) aCL antibodies was observed in group I patients. However, among the patients in group II, only the levels of IgA aCL antibodies were increased. In both groups, the addition of the IgA aCL determination--to the classical IgG and IgM aCL assays--increased the prevalence of positive reactors in 31.6%. These results indicate that high levels of IgA aCL antibodies correlated better with thrombocytopenia than either IgG or IgM. Also, the importance of including the determination of IgA aCL antibodies to assess properly the risk of thrombosis, thrombocytopenia, and recurrent abortions in systemic lupus erythematosus patients is demonstrated.

Abortion, Habitual↗
PubMed1991

[Is coronary cineangiography more accurate than early bicycle ergometry test in the identification of high-risk acute myocardial infarction survivors?].

PURPOSE: To determine if attenuated early treadmill stress testing is more or less accurate than cinecoronary arteriography in the identification of high-risk acute myocardial infarction (AMI) survivors. PATIENTS AND METHODS: In a prospective study 96 non-selected and consecutive AMI survivors underwent cinecoronary arteriography in the 4th week of hospitalization and were followed up for a period of 3 to 39 (21.7 +/- 11.0) months. One-half of the patients were randomly submitted to an attenuated heart rate-limited treadmill stress testing in the 3rd week. Seven patients were lost in the follow-up. Of the remaining 89 patients 5 died of cardiac causes. Cardiac events (death, reinfarction, angina and heart failure) occurred in 26 patients. Multivessel coronary artery disease was found in 67 patients (75%) and mean left ventricular ejection fraction was 49.1 +/- 15.6%. Positive treadmill stress testing for myocardial ischemia occurred in 20 of 43 patients (46%). RESULTS: All patients who died of cardiac causes or who had a cardiac event had multivessel coronary artery disease, the mean left ventricular ejection fraction was 38.6 +/- 16.6% and 45.2 +/- 16.4%, respectively, and two-thirds of patients had positive stress testing. For cardiac death, multivessel coronary artery disease had better sensitivity than positive stress testing and left ventricular ejection fraction less than 0.3 (100% vs 67% vs 20%, respectively) while ejection fraction had better specificity than stress testing and multivessel coronary artery disease (87% vs 55% vs 21%, respectively). Stress testing had a better positive predictive value than multivessel coronary artery disease and ejection fraction (53% vs 38% vs 36%, respectively while multivessel coronary artery disease had better negative predictive value than stress testing and ejection fraction (100% vs 77% vs and 70%, respectively). The association of data obtained from cinecoronarography study between themselves and with positive treadmill stress testing did not significantly improve the sensitivities, specificities and predictive values in relation to the results obtained by isolated data. CONCLUSION: In survivors of acute myocardial infarction cinecoronary arteriography is not more accurate than, treadmill stress testing and both have limited value in the identification of patients who are candidates for cardiac death or events in the first few years after AMI. A negative stress testing and coronary arteriography (one-vessel disease) is more informative than a positive one.

Chi-Square Distribution↗
PubMed1984

Associative visual agnosia: a case study.

This report describes a case of associative visual agnosia caused by a left sided, cortico-subcortical, inferior temporo-occipital infarction. Performance on visual perceptual tests was normal, while it was defective on visual classification tasks. Visual agnosia was interpreted as a visuo-verbal disconnection plus a categorization deficit for visual meaningful common stimuli. The left occipito-temporal lesion disrupted the visual classification process and prevented access of visual information to language areas and limbic system. The absence of right hemispheric lesion accounted for the normal recognition of familiar faces and other unique individual stimuli such as familiar places, whose recognition occurs through contextual evocation.

Agnosia↗