Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to M L Giles.
The sensitivity of ultrasonography for detecting gallstones is high, but mishaps can occur. The three false positive cases we describe here illustrate problems which may be encountered in interpreting ultrasound images and in communication between the clinician, patient and ultrasonographer.
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OBJECTS: to determine whether children may grow out of recurrent acute tonsillitis. METHODS: the parents of 100 children aged 2-14 on the elective waiting list for tonsillectomy were given a postal or telephone interview in November 1989. RESULTS: data from the parents of 92 respondents showed the children had been on the waiting list for a mean of seven months. Ninety-two percent still suffered from sore throats and 79% had had at least one course of antibiotics within the last six months. There was no reduction in the frequency of sore throat or the number of courses of antibiotics in children who had waited longer. CONCLUSIONS: there was no justification for claiming that long waiting lists for tonsillectomy are frequently associated with resolution of recurrent acute tonsillitis.
Habitual, loud snoring is common in the adult population, and may be the only symptom of the more serious Obstructive Sleep Apnoea syndrome. We report here our results of uvulo-palato-pharyngo-plasty (UPPP), with or without nasal surgery, for snoring. Quantitative grading of the severity of the snoring shows that all patients were cured of symptomatic snoring, but that snoring was not altogether abolished in all patients.
Diverticulectomy for pharyngeal pouch requires several days in hospital and carries a risk of postoperative fistula formation. Small to moderate sized pouches can be inverted easily. Experience with this technique has been encouraging and results are reported here. Large pouches of long standing probably should be excised rather than inverted.
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The procedure used with the Du Pont aca for alpha-amylase (1,4,-alpha-D-glucan glucanohydrolase, EC 3.2.1.1) was evaluated in our laboratory and compared with the Roche Diagnostics "Amylochrome" and Perkin-Elmer Coleman 91 amylase assays. The within-run coefficients of variation (CV) for samples of fresh normal sera were: aca 5.8% and 4.3% on two different lots of reagent, Amylochrome 7.4%, and Coleman 91 3.3%. In sera with abnormally high amylase activity, the respective CV's were: aca, 1.2% and 0.8%; Amylochrome, 2.0%; and Coleman 91, 2.8%. Day-to-day precision studies on fresh and lyophilized normal and abnormal sera gave CV's in the following ranges: aca, 1.8% to 6.7%; Amylochrome, 3.0% to 5.2%; and Coleman 91, 4.5% to 5.9%. Results by the aca procedure were linearly related to activity to about 10-fold the upper limit of normal amylase activity. For serum, correlations were: r = 0.977 for aca vs. Coleman 91 and r = 0.974 for aca vs. Amylochrome. For urine they were: r = 0.978 for aca vs. Coleman 91 and r = 0.975 for aca vs. Amylochrome. Mean recovery from 53 supplemented samples was 98%. Icterus, hemolysis, and lipemia did not interfere with method correlation of aca vs. Coleman 91 or Amylochrome.
We evaluated 16 claims made by Beckman Instruments, Inc. for its Enzyme Analyzer (System TR), under a rigid written protocol for the Product Evaluation Subcommittee of the Standards Committee of the College of American Pathologists. We found the following to be within the company's specifications: (a) accuracy and precision of the temperature control; (b) accuracy and precision of the sample and reagent pipets; (c) instrument precision, both within-run and between-day; (d) carry-over from a sample with activity greater than 1000 U/liter; (e) instrument-to-instrument variation; (f) analytical linearity; (g) analysis time; (h) correlation of the instrument-printed answer with the activity calculated manually from a strip-chart recorder; (i) precision of the instrument's built-in electronic "standard"; (j) effectiveness of the over-range indicators; and (k) correlation between results of these enzyme assay methods and those for kinetic methods used in our laboratory. The instrument performed well.