Bilateral spontaneous corneal rupture in brittle cornea syndrome: a case report.
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Child, Preschool↗
Biomedical subjects
P B Marsh
Publications and source records attributed to P B Marsh.
Obesity as a factor in penetrating keratoplasty.
PURPOSE: We reviewed the clinical data on 10 obese patients to define the role of obesity as a factor for consideration in planning penetrating keratoplasty. METHODS: We performed a retrospective case series review of penetrating keratoplasty in obese patients. RESULTS: In our series of 10 patients, spontaneous extrusion of lens and vitreous (three patients) and choroidal hemorrhage (one patient) were intraoperative complications. Wound leakage, wound dehiscence (two patients), iridocorneal synechia formation, and graft rejection (one patient) were postoperative complications. Despite these complications, seven of the 10 patients achieved a final postoperative visual acuity of > or =20/30. CONCLUSION: Cornea surgeons must consider obesity as a potential risk factor that may be mitigated partially by careful preoperative patient evaluation, anesthesia planning, and meticulous attention to patient positioning and comfort during surgery.
Adult↗
Corneal surface disease topology.
The specific morphology and distribution of corneal surface lesions may point toward a specific diagnosis and pathogenesis in individual cases (see Fig 1). Staining lesions may be fine (e.g., staphylococcal) or punctate (e.g., keratitis sicca). The size and appearance of staining and nonstaining lesions of the epithelium and subepithelial cornea may be characteristic for a particular disease process (e.g., HSV, EKC). Finally, the location of lesions is important. Inferior staining (staphylococcal disease, lagophthalmos) will be incited by a different cause as compared to superior (molluscum, trachoma, vernal keratoconjunctivitis) and peripheral (contact lens-induced, collagen vascular disease) staining patterns. Central lesions are more likely to indicate tear deficiency, superficial corneal dystrophies, viral infections, or metabolic conditions. Knowledge of these patterns of disease can allow accurate diagnosis and more expedient and successful treatment of corneal surface disease.
Cornea↗
Bacteria on closed-boll and commercially harvested cotton.
The bacterial content of specially treated cottons used by other investigators to test human pulmonary responses to cotton dust was examined. Cotton from Lubbock, Tex. and Stoneville, Miss. were either (i) harvested by machine and handled as commercial bale cotton, (ii) harvested as closed bolls with bracts intact and opened under special conditions, (iii) harvested as closed bolls, with bracts being removed and opened under special conditions, or (iv) harvested by (stoneville only). Bacillus spp. were isolated from all samples and predominated in cotton from Stoneville. Enterobacter agglomerans was isolated from all but one sample, the Stoneville closed-boll bract-removed cotton, and predominated in Lubbock samples. Aerogenic and anaerogenic biogroups of E. agglomerans were isolated; only aerogenic strain b of E. agglomerans was present in samples from both locations. Klebsiella ozaenae and K. pneumoniae were isolated only from Lubbock samples. Cotton from Lubbock yielded 100 to 1,000 times more bacteria, both total and gram negative, than did comparably treated cotton from Stoneville. Thus, differences in growing and processing conditions at the two locations were associated with large differences in the bacterial content of the cotton, but harvesting green bolls and removing bracts had little effect. The bacterial content of Stoneville washed cotton, and it paralleled the differences reported (Boehlecke et al., Am. Rev. Respir, Dis. 123:152, 1981) in pulmonary function responses when subjects were exposed to dust (0.6 mg/m3) from these two cottons. Levels of gram-negative and total bacteria on all samples were comparable to those previously reported for field-weathered cottons from various locations throughout the world.
Agricultural Workers' Diseases↗
Dispersal of Aspergillus fumigatus from Sewage Sludge Compost Piles Subjected to Mechanical Agitation in Open Air.
Aerosolization of the thermophilous fungal opportunist Aspergillus fumigatus from mechanically agitated compost piles was examined at a pilot-scale sewage sludge composting facility and two other selected test sites. Aerosols of A. fumigatus downwind from stationary compost piles were insignificant in comparison with those downwind from agitated piles. These aerosols were generated by a front-end loader moving and dropping compost. Aerial concentrations of the fungus at distances downwind from the point of emission were used to determine an emission rate for A. fumigatus associated with the moving operations. The maximum emission rate, 4.6 x 10A. fumigatus particles per s, was used to calculate predicted concentrations in an unobstructed plume with restrictive, neutral, and dispersive atmospheric mixing conditions up to 1 km downwind from the emission source.
Journal Article↗
A guide to the recent literature on aspergillosis as caused by Aspergillus fumigatus, a fungus frequently found in self-heating organic matter.
Spores of Aspergillus fumigatus have been found to be abundantly present in the outdoor air at a site where large scale experimental composting of sewage sludge is in progress at Beltsville, Maryland. The health significance of this finding, for that site and for others in the future, is still only incompletely understood. Further studies are in progress to characterize absolute concentrations of the spores of the fungus in air at the site, spore dispersal by air from composting operations, and background environmental spore levels in air. The present paper contains a list of references to papers on health effects of A. fumigatus, many published in the past ten years, along with a review of the same designed to assist the reader in finding information on particular aspects of the subject in the literature. It is intended primarily as an aid to individuals interested in sludge composting and wishing to attain an insight into the A. fumigatus-composting situation, but it may also interest others concerned with other substrates which become moldy at 40--50 C. A. fumigatus has been found in great numbers in naturally and artificially heated environments such as decaying leaves, compost heaps, solar heated sloughs, cooling canals for nuclear power generators, silos, grain storage bins, boiler rooms, detritus around steam turbines and sauna baths. The evident practical merits of sludge composting have been described elsewhere; the information presented here has its main significance in respect to requirements for choice of locations for composting sites and to process and design criteria.
Animals↗
Weight increase of cotton fibers during swelling in alkali as a sensitive measure of cellulose degradation in ruminal fluid.
Weight increase of cotton fiber in an 18% NaOH solution, termed "alkali-centrifuge" or "AC" value, was measured after incubation of either 1 g or 100 mg of the fiber in ruminal fluid. The AC response was a sensitive measure of cellulolytic activity. Thus, fiber incubated at 21 and 51 degrees C exhibited major AC increases even when direct weight losses of the unswollen fiber were less than 2%. Similarly, progressive additions of acetic acid to ruminal fluid progressively depressed both AC response and direct weight loss, but the former was still easily measurable when the latter was not. In tightly closed, completely filled vials with high ratio of ruminal fluid to sample, AC increased greatly and rapidly, i.e., in 6 h. This time could be further reduced to 2 h by overnight "preincubation" of the ruminal fluid with cotton fiber before starting the test incubation. Certain surfactants used to aid wetting of the fiber had a low but measurable potency in inhibiting cellulose digestion, but other surfactants were non-inhibitory. The AC response was maintained when ruminal fluid was diluted with an equal amount of McDougall's "artificial saliva" solution.
Journal Article↗
Occurrence of Aspergillus fumigatus during composting of sewage sludge.
Aspergillus fumigatus, a medically important fungal opportunist and respiratory allergen, was isolated from woodchips and sewage sludge used in the production of compost at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's composting research facility in Beltsville, Md. It was also regularly isolated as a dominant fungus during forced aeration composting and after 30 days in an unaerated stationary curing pile; in both cases, the fungus was found in pile zones with temperatures less than 60 degrees C. Compost stored outdoors in stationary unaerated piles from 1 to 4 months after screening out of woodchips contained easily detectable amounts of A. fumigatus in the exterior pile zones (0- to 25-cm depths). Semiquantitative studies of the airspora at the composting site revealed that A. fumigatus constituted 75% of the total viable mycoflora captured. At locations 320 m to 8 km from the compost site, the fungus constituted only 2% of the total viable mycoflora in the air. Of 21 samples of commercially available potting soil, one had levels of A. fumigatus nearly equivalent to those of 1-month-old storage compost; 15 others had lower but detectable levels.
Agriculture↗
Effect of monensin fed with forage on digestion and the ruminal ecosystem of steers.
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Ammonia↗
Effects of trace metals on the production of aflatoxins by Aspergillus parasiticus.
Certain metals added as salts to a defined basal culture medium influenced the level of aflatoxin production by Aspergillus parasiticus in the low micrograms-per-milliliter range of the added metal. In many cases no change or a relatively small change in mat weight and final pH of the medium accompanied this effect. With zinc at added levels of 0 to 10 mug/ml in the medium, aflatoxin increased 30-to 1,000-fold with increasing of zinc, whereas mat weight increased less than threefold. At 25 mug of added zinc per ml, aflatoxin decreased, but mat weight did not. At an added level of 25 mug or less of the metal per ml, salts of iron, manganese, cooper, cadmium, trivalent chromium, silver, and mercury partly or completelyinhibited aflatoxin production, without influencing mat weight.
Aflatoxins↗
Fungi that infect cottonseeds before harvest.
As a part of an investigation of aflatoxins and other mycotoxins in cottonseeds at harvest, samples of seeds collected from the 1971 crop at locations across the U.S. Cotton Belt were examined to determine the kinds of microorganisms causing internal or seed-coat infection in the field. Aspergillus flavus infection was absent from all seeds examined from most areas but was present in some samples from Arizona, California, and Texas. Fusarium spp., Alternaria sp., and A. niger caused internal infection at many locations; Colletotrichum gossypii and Rhizopus stolonifer were present in seeds from some areas but were generally much less common. Many of the infections with A. niger were in the seed coat. Bacterial infections were fairly frequent. In a series of commerical samples from Arizona. A. flavus infection was found in 61% of seeds, with fiber showing the bright, greenish-yellow (BGY) fluorescence that is diagnostic for A. flavus boll rot. Aflatoxin contamination was also concentration in the same seeds. The above findings agree with previous data showing that aflatoxin contamination of cottonseeds before harvest occurs rarely, if at all, in most parts of the U.S. Cotton Belt and that when such contamination does occur, it tends to be concentrated in seeds with the BGY fluorescence in their fiber and seed fuzz.
Journal Article↗