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Biomedical subjects

N K Coni

Publications and source records attributed to N K Coni.

16 recordsLinked to original sources

Peripheral vascular disease--the geriatrician's tale.

One hundred and twenty four elderly patients with peripheral vascular disease were seen by a geriatrician over a period of just under 4 years. Half of them presented with critical ischaemia and had not been previously known to have peripheral vascular disease. Two-thirds were shown to have bilateral disease; 14.5% of the series developed manifestations of the condition during the course of acute systemic illnesses and in 5 cases this was almost certainly, and in several more probably, due to haemodynamic crises. A third were dead within 3 months and so far a further 18.5% are known to have died within 2 y of first encounter. Of those who survived 3 months, at least 37% required treatment for persistent rest pain or had skin ulceration or necrosis, or had developed gangrene or come to amputation. Only 5 patients, after investigation, underwent successful limb salvage procedures. Peripheral vascular disease in old people is common, is likely to continue to be so, carries a dismal prognosis, and appears on the evidence presented here to be under-suspected until an advanced stage in the disease. Those dealing with the aged must be constantly on the alert for it since it calls for scrupulous care of the feet and for especial vigilance during acute systemic illness.

Acute Disease

Regional cerebral perfusion imaging in the elderly.

Tomographic emission scintigraphy of the brain using a stationary gamma-camera and rotating slant hole collimator, following intravenous injection of 123I-n-isopropyl p-iodoamphetamine, yields high quality images of regional cerebral blood flow. The technique has been used on 20 geriatric patients and is non-invasive, well-tolerated, and hitherto only associated with trivial adverse effects. It appears to be particularly useful in supporting a clinical diagnosis of multi-infarct disease but the demonstration of zones of underperfused but not necessarily infarcted cerebral tissue may well have wider research implications.

Aged

Posture and the arterial pressure in the ischaemic foot.

Systolic blood pressures were measured at the ankle by Doppler ultrasound sphygmomanometry in a series of elderly patients. Twenty-four limbs were affected by severe occlusive arterial disease and in 15 limbs there was no good evidence of significant peripheral vascular insufficiency. The pressures were measured in the supine position and again with the subject sitting upright or standing. In both series there was, as anticipated, a marked increase in the pressure, so that the sitting/erect range of pressures in the ischaemic limbs overlapped considerably with the supine pressure range in the healthy limbs and were then higher than the values usually associated with rest pain and non-healing skin lesions. This postural effect almost certainly does not reflect a corresponding rise in blood flow in the normal extremity, but in the ischaemic foot it may offer a simple means of improving perfusion.

Aged

The "elephant man" of Cambridge. a case report of neurofibromatosis.

The case is presented of a 65-year-old man with neurofibromatosis manifesting facial and skeletal features resembling those of the "elephant man" described by Sir Frederick Treves. Autopsy revealed not only a pheochromocytoma (a common accompaniment of neurofibromatosis), but an enlarged infarcted spleen and a subphrenic abscess. These findings have not been described previously in a patient with neurofibromatosis.

Adolescent