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Biomedical subjects

N Phillips

Publications and source records attributed to N Phillips.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
PubMed1995

The Kropp-onlay procedure (Pippi Salle procedure): a simplification of the technique of urethral lengthening. Preliminary results in eight patients.

OBJECTIVE: To lengthen the urethra to increase bladder outlet resistance in adolescent girls with a neurogenic bladder. PATIENTS AND METHODS: During a 2-year period (1992-94), eight girls (mean age 13.5 years, range 9-19) underwent a Kropp-onlay urethral lengthening associated, for six of them, with a bladder augmentation. Seven of the eight patients patients were spina bifida and confined to a wheelchair. One patient had had a previous transverse myelitis. A Benchekroun hydraulic value (in three cases) and a Malone procedure (in two cases) were performed at the same stage. The technique of Kropp-onlay urethral lengthening, which creates a flap value mechanism which leaks when the bladder is too full, is described and illustrated. RESULTS: Seven of eight patients were dry during the day and four were occasionally damp during the second part of the night. One could not be dry for more than 2 h during the day but had a very hyperactive detrusor. She developed two bladder stones which required an open vesicotomy. One developed a urethral fistula requiring a second Kropp-onlay procedure and became dry afterwards. Two patients, who did not undergo a bladder augmentation, needed oxybutinin therapy to obtain a satisfactory result. Post-operative urodynamic measurements are discussed. CONCLUSION: The Knopp-onlay urethral lengthening is easier to perform than the original Kropp procedure. The preliminary results are similar to those of alternative techniques (e.g. urethral suspension) but long-term reliability of this technique remains unknown.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Impaired human responses to tetanus toxoid in vitamin A-deficient SCID mice reconstituted with human peripheral blood lymphocytes.

Vitamin A deficiency is associated with increased childhood morbidity and mortality from respiratory and diarrheal diseases. In order to evaluate the effect of vitamin A on human antibody responses, we developed a vitamin A-deficient severe combined immunodeficient (SCID) mouse model. Vitamin A-deficient mice were produced by depriving them of vitamin A at day 7 of gestation. Mice were reconstituted with human peripheral blood lymphocytes (huPBL) from tetanus toxoid immune donors at 6 weeks of age and immunized with tetanus toxoid at 6 and 8 weeks of age. Secondary human antibody responses were determined 10 days later. The geometric mean human anti-tetanus toxoid immunoglobulin G concentrations were 3.75 micrograms/ml for the deficient mice and 148 micrograms/ml for controls (P = 0.0005). Vitamin A-deficient mice had only a 2.9-fold increase in human anti-tetanus toxoid antibody compared with a 74-fold increase in controls (P < 0.01). Supplementation with vitamin A prior to reconstitution restored human antibody responses to normal. These data suggest that vitamin A deficiency impairs human antibody responses. We speculate that impaired responses could increase susceptibility to certain infections. Furthermore, we propose that effects of other nutritional deficiencies on the human immune system could be evaluated in the SCID-huPBL model.

Animals↗
PubMed1995

Peptic ulcer disease and Jamaican patients' awareness of their disorder.

In the management and prevention of recurrence of peptic ulcer disease, patients' awareness of their disorder is essential. Fifty-one patients with peptic ulcer disease were studied regarding their awareness of their disorder and compliance with medications. There were 30 women and 21 men with a mean age of 45 years. Thirty-five per cent had secondary school education; 22% had tertiary training and 10% had no formal education. Sixty-three per cent of patients knew their ulcer location but 37% were unaware of their diagnosis. Twenty-nine per cent received most of their information from their pharmacists. Twenty per cent of patients smoked cigarettes; 31% drank alcohol, and 14% took non-steroidal analgesics. Seventy-six per cent thought that poor eating habits were a contributory cause of their ulcer; 39% thought that stress was a cause and 16% implicated heredity. Seventy-six per cent of patients took their medications daily, and 24% only when symptomatic. Jamaican patients' awareness of their ulcer disease is inadequate. There is a need for more physician education of their patients as well as public health promotion about peptic ulcer disease.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Attitudes and behaviors of African-American and Mexican-American women delivering newborns in inner-city Los Angeles.

To study some of the factors relating to the care of mothers and newborns in an inner-city hospital, three sources of information were reviewed: an obstetric database including information on prenatal care and perinatal mortality, a database of all admissions to the hospital neonatal intensive care unit over the past 5 years, and a detailed questionnaire concerning attitudes and behaviors of recently delivered women. While analyses from these hospital-based data are not conclusive, the results add evidence for the following propositions: 1) Optimal prenatal care is infrequently obtained by mothers delivering at inner-city hospitals. Lack of prenatal care is clearly associated with increased perinatal mortality. While the need for prenatal care is appreciated by 98% of the mothers in this sample, the most frequent reasons why prenatal care is not obtained earlier or more frequently involve knowledge about and access to prenatal care. 2) Inner-city mothers, in general, manifest attitudes and behaviors that promote the welfare of their pregnancies and newborns. These attitudes and behaviors are in stark contrast to those that are frequently attributed to inner-city women by the media. 3) Acute perinatal medical and nursing care are perceived by many postpartum women as suboptimal, particularly in terms of the lack of respect shown to patients by nurses and doctors. 4) Improved acute obstetric and neonatal care improves perinatal morbidity and mortality of infants delivered at inner-city hospitals.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Isolation of two contigs of overlapping cosmids derived from human chromosomal band 3p21.1 and identification of 5 new 3p21.1 genes.

Consistent loss of DNA sequences from several regions on the short arm of human chromosome 3 has suggested that multiple tumor suppressor genes reside on chromosome 3p in various types of cancer cells. We have focused our efforts on an analysis of chromosomal band 3p21.1 since aminoacylase-1 (ACY1), which is localized to this band, has been shown to have lower levels of expression in several small cell and non-small cell lung cancer cell lines. Starting with two cosmids within 3p21.1, D3S92 and D3S93, we have isolated two separate contigs of overlapping cosmids within 3p21.1, by screening a library of 5700 chromosome 3-specific cosmid clones. Detailed restriction maps for these two contigs show that they contain multiple clusters of rare cutting restriction endonuclease sites. One contig extends for 100 kb and encompassed both ACY1 and D3S92, and the other extends about 80 kb around the D3S93 locus. Many different restriction fragments derived from these two contigs were found to be evolutionarily conserved and hybridized to distinct message transcripts. These fragments were used to identify homologous cDNAs from an adenogastric cDNA library, and several of these cDNAs were partially sequenced. We have identified five new genes from these two contigs and there is evidence to suggest that several additional genes reside within these cosmid contigs. The genes identified from 3p21.1 were then hybridized to DNA, isolated from a series of lung cancer cell lines and matched normal and tumor DNA from lung cancer patients. No alterations were detected with any of these probes, both at the DNA or RNA levels. A similar analysis with DNA fragments derived from these two genomic regions also failed to detect any alterations.

Animals↗
PubMed1994

The Vancouver sedative recovery scale for children: validation and reliability of scoring based on videotaped instruction.

We originally developed and tested the Vancouver Sedative Recovery Scale (VSRS) to measure recovery from sedation following paediatric open heart surgery and reported excellent clinical inter-observer reliability. We now report a new study using videotape instruction of novice raters and videotaped case examples to determine whether the instruction produces adequate skill with the VSRS. Inter-rater reliability was assessed using videotapes of 16 children across a range of ages (six months to six years), and all levels of sedation (unresponsive to fully awake). Variably randomized subsets of six of the 16 test cases were randomly assigned to be rated by each of 16 video-instructed ICU staff volunteers, according to a balanced incomplete block design, such that every pair of raters assessed two children in common. The validity of the ratings from the video-instructed raters was assessed by comparison with "gold standard" scores from two experts who rated all 16 children clinically as the test cases were videotaped. The experts were in agreement themselves (intraclass correlation of 0.976). The correlation between the novice scores (average of six ratings per video) and the live clinical scores (average of two expert ratings) was 0.977 over the 16 test cases. On average, the mean expert rating was slightly higher, but the difference was negligible. (The differences between the mean ratings of the experts and novices for 13 of the 16 videos are very close to zero, while the other three differences, from technically less good videos, are two standard deviations away from zero). The VSRS, video instruction method and incomplete block design may be of use to other clinicians and investigators.

Anesthesia Recovery Period↗
PubMed1993

Allelic loss on chromosome 17 in human ovarian cancer.

In order to identify a common region of deletion on chromosome 17 potentially containing a tumor-suppressor gene, 27 ovarian carcinomas and 3 ovarian tumors of low malignant potential (LMP) were examined for loss of heterozygosity (LOH) at 6 p arm and 10 q arm loci. Ninety percent of all tumors had deletions at one or more loci. On the p arm, there was a single near-common region of deletion on 17p13.3 (D17S30/pYNZ22.1; 86% LOH), an intervening locus with a low LOH rate, and a more proximal locus on 17p11.2 (D17S58/pEW301; 82% LOH) with a high LOH rate. In less aggressive tumors, LOH at D17S30 was not accompanied by LOH at p53. The q arm had a common region of deletion for high-stage carcinoma at D17S579 (Mfd188; 74% LOH) on q21, a locus tightly linked to the familial breast-ovarian-cancer syndrome (BRCAI) locus. D17S579 was lost in all informative high-stage carcinomas and retained in all low-stage carcinomas and tumors of LMP. There may be at least 2 tumor-suppressor genes, an early-acting gene on the p arm and a gene on the q arm involved in tumor progression and metastasis.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Schwann cell induction in the ventral portion of the spinal cord.

Schwann cell development can be induced in a predictable manner in the dorsal aspect of the lumbosacral spinal cord of the immature rat by exposing that structure to ionizing radiation. This development occurs in essentially all animals and becomes evident between 2 and 3 weeks postirradiation (P-I). Occasionally, intraspinal Schwann cells were observed ventrally at later intervals following irradiation, usually more than 45 days P-I. The present study focused on the development of Schwann cells within the ventral portion of the lumbosacral spinal cord in 53 animals followed for periods up to 7 months P-I. Ventrally located intraspinal Schwann cells developed in approximately 40% of these animals, in contrast to the development dorsally in all animals. The ventrally located aggregates were generally smaller than those dorsally and occurred more frequently in gray matter than in white matter. An interesting feature of the ventrally located Schwann cells was that they were often associated with blood vessels, which raised the possibility that these cells developed from undifferentiated cells of the vascular walls or used the vessels as a pathway for migration.

Animals↗
PubMed1993

Study design for microgravity human physiology experiments.

In some areas of research, such as microgravity life sciences, both the number of subjects and the opportunity for repeated observation under experimental conditions are limited. Small N study designs are appropriate for these situations since they require few subjects and few observations in the experimental condition. Small N studies compare treatment conditions separately for each subject so that between-subject variability does not obscure treatment effects. Multiple observations are collected for each individual in the baseline condition to ensure a stable reference point for comparison with the smaller number of observations collected under the experimental conditions. Individual differences can be overlooked in large N studies, but in small N studies the focus is on the individual, and differences observed between particular individuals can be suggestive of underlying causal processes. We present a step-by-step approach to designing and conducting a small N study.

Evoked Potentials, Somatosensory↗
PubMed1992

Regulation of estrogen sulfotransferase by estrogen in MCF-7 human mammary cancer cells.

The importance of the steroid hormone microenvironment within cells is now recognised in studies on endocrine-related neoplasms such as breast cancer. This focuses attention on enzymes which control the intracellular levels of estradiol-17 beta (E2). One such enzyme, estrogen sulfotransferase, which converts E2 to inactive E2-3 sulfate, has now been shown to be regulated by estrogen in MCF-7 human mammary cancer cells. Hydroxysteroid sulfotransferase, which sulfurylates the adrenal-derived estrogen 5-androstene-3 beta,17 beta-diol, is also under estrogen control. Evidence is provided which shows that one function of these enzymes may involve elimination of estrogen from the cell following processing of the ligand-charged estrogen receptor (ER).

Breast Neoplasms↗
PubMed1992

Molecular analysis of carbohydrate antigen-induced monoclonal IgM anti-IgG antibodies (rheumatoid factors).

Light and heavy chain variable regions of 11 monoclonal rheumatoid factors (MRF) produced after carbohydrate antigen immunization, and one MRF produced after protein immunization have been sequenced. Most carbohydrate antigen induced MRF utilized light chains that were homologous to light chains of MRF obtained from protein immune or LPS stimulated mice, and MRF derived from the autoimmune MRL/lpr mouse strain. VH gene usage was diverse for carbohydrate antigen induced MRF that bound all four isotypes of IgG, or that bound only the IgG3 isotype. In contrast VH gene use among our panel of MRF that bound the IgG1 isotype appeared restricted. Four of the five IgG1 binders used VH genes that were highly homologous to the VH nucleotide sequence of a gene encoding an NP binding monoclonal antibody. Our study confirms the use of a particular group of light chain genes among murine MRF, confirms that there is diversity in the heavy chain genes utilized among MRF, and suggests that a gene(s) homologous to the VH NP 23 J558 gene may be preferentially associated with murine MRF specificity for the IgG1 isotype.

Amino Acid Sequence↗
PubMed1991

REM sleep deprivation does not increase the sexual behaviors of male rats.

Using several measures of sexual activity, 24 male and 30 female Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to a pretreatment test and 3 posttests (immediate and Recovery Days 4 and 7) following REM sleep deprivation in a water tank. With careful controls, sexual activity was not significantly affected by the sleep treatments. Data do not support motivational hypotheses.

Animals↗
PubMed1990

Use of granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor in patients with malignancy and bone marrow failure.

Recombinant human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) was administered to 10 patients with refractory malignancies, 2 patients who had myelodysplastic syndromes with severe neutropenia and to a patient who had delayed marrow recovery after 3 cycles of therapy for acute leukemia. A marked neutropenia and monocytopenia was observed within 5 min after an i.v. injection of GM-CSF. This persisted for 1-2 h and seemed related to activation of an adhesive glycoprotein (MO1) on the surface of these cells. With continued daily i.v. administration of GM-CSF, all patients with refractory malignancies developed a striking leukocytosis. Total leukocyte counts reached 75,000/microliters within 2 weeks of treatment. This was due to an increase in band and segmented neutrophils, eosinophils and monocytes. Accelerated myelopoiesis required the continuous presence of GM-CSF; with pump failure for 24 h or discontinuation after 14 days, leukocyte counts returned to normal levels in 24-48 h. GM-CSF also increased myelopoiesis in the patients with myelodysplastic syndromes or following anti-leukemic treatment. These observations suggest that this growth factor should prove a useful adjunct in the treatment of patients with malignancies and bone marrow failure.

Aged↗
PubMed1990

Social support and outcome in teenage pregnancy.

This paper presents information on the role and significance of social support for the occurrence of health and birth problems among adolescent mothers and their babies. Pregnant teenagers (N = 268) were interviewed during the course of pregnancy and again approximately four weeks after delivery, and hospital records were abstracted. The significance of family support, friend support, and partner support, assessed during the pregnancy, were examined in relation to infant and mother outcomes assessed at or after the birth. Infant outcome was indexed by birth weight, with gestational age controlled; mother outcome in terms of psychological adaptation was indexed by depressive symptomatology among adolescent mothers. Socioeconomic background was found to influence relationships between social support and both infant and mother outcomes.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1989

Phosphorylation of avian retrovirus matrix protein by Ca2+/phospholipid-dependent protein kinase.

The matrix protein from avian myeloblastosis virus and the Rous sarcoma virus, Prague C strain, is a phosphoprotein. A comparison of the amino acid sequences shows these phosphoproteins are very similar. The sites of phosphorylation of the matrix protein purified from virions are identified as serine residues 68 and 106. Treatment with purified rabbit skeletal-muscle protein phosphatase 1 or 2A, selectively releases phosphate from serine 68, while alkali treatment releases phosphate from both sites. When analyzed as a substrate for six different protein kinases, only the Ca2+/phospholipid-dependent protein kinase modifies the matrix protein. The serine residues phosphorylated in vivo are identical to those phosphorylated in vitro by this protein kinase. The role of these phosphorylation events in viral production is discussed.

Amino Acid Sequence↗