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Biomedical subjects

R Connor

Publications and source records attributed to R Connor.

32 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1984

Pneumatosis intestinalis: role of computed tomography in diagnosis and management.

Four patients with pneumatosis intestinalis (PI) demonstrated by computed tomography are presented. Computed tomography delineated the location and extent of PI more accurately than plain abdominal radiographs and demonstrated any coexisting abdominal pathology. Lung window settings were important in the detection of intramural air and obviated the need for intraluminal contrast to outline the circumferential pattern of PI. In one patient PI would have been overlooked entirely using only conventional abdominal window settings. This technical observation could have potential clinical significance in the investigation of patients with suspected intestinal ischemia or gangrene where the appearance of intramural air is an ominous prognostic sign.

Adult↗
PubMed1982

Immunologically defined prognostic subgroups as predictors of response to BCG immunotherapy.

Fifty-two stage I and II patients with nonsmall cell lung cancer were randomized after resection to no further therapy, BCG, or BCG plus allogeneic tumor cells. Patients have been observed for 16-65 months (mean 39.5). When the two immunotherapy arms were combined and plotted against controls, trend analysis suggested (P = 0.088) an increase in disease-free interval (DFI) only for stage I patients. The one-way mixed lymphocyte culture (MLC) values were depressed in some patients prior to any immune stimulation. Immunotherapy significantly benefited DFI among patients with a depressed MLC.

Clinical Trials as Topic↗
PubMed1978

Attentional deficits and word attributes preferred by learning disabled children in grades 2, 4, and 6.

This study investigated the postulated effects of attentional deficits on the relative preferences for associative, acoustic, and orthographic attributes in word recognition by 15 learning disabled children each in Grades 2, 4, and 6. An analysis of errors in recall suggests that the children in the second grade did not encode and retrieve information as did their normal counterparts but rather used several stimulus attributes in retrieval. The children in the sixth grade, however, evidenced a significant preference for the orthographic attribute in recall as did normal second grade children. These findings are discussed as they relate to attention deficits, the capacity of short-term memory and achievement in learning disabled children.

Achievement↗
PubMed1977

The relative proliferation index as a more sensitive parameter for evaluating lymphoproliferative responses of cancer patients to mitogens and alloantigens.

Lymphocyte proliferation (LP) assays were performed in microculture using the T-cell mitogens phytohemagglutinin (PHA) and concanavalin A (Con A); the T + B cell mitogens, pokeweed mitogen (PWM) and staphylococcal phage lysate (SPL); and a pool of allogeneic stimulating leukocytes in one-way mixed leukocyte cultures (MLC) in lung and breast cancer patients and normal individuals. The resultant data were expressed in three different ways: (1) as mean counts per minute (CPM) of tritiated thymidine incorporation; (2) as a stimulation index (SI) and (3) as a relative proliferation index (RPI). The RPI is defined as the ratio of net CPM (nCPM) in experimental cultures with stimulant (E) minus medium control cultures (C) of a test individual to the mean nCPM of three or more normal individuals examined in the same assay on the same day. These expressions were then compared for their ability to discriminate between LP responses in cancer patients and normal individuals. The RPI value and selected cut-off values gave the most sensitive measure for the determination of depressed proliferative responses. These analyses demonstrated that lung carcinoma patients were depressed to PHA (50%), MLC (47%), PWM (43%) and Con A (40%). To a lesser degree, breast carcinoma patients were also depressed to MLC (36%), PHA (31%), PWM (27%) and Con A (19%). Our data indicate that the use of the RPI in the analysis of LP response represents an improved method for detecting impaired response of lymphocytes to general mitogens and alloantigens which can consistently reveal immunosuppression in many cancer patients and may be useful for serial monitoring of individual patients.

Antigens, Bacterial↗
PubMed1976

Interindividual variation in binding of benzo[a]pyrene to DNA in cultured human bronchi.

The binding of benzo[a]pyrene to DNA in cultured human bronchus was measured in specimens from 37 patients. The binding values ranged from 2 to 151 picomoles of benzo[a]pyrene per milligram of DNA with an overall mean +/- standard error of 34.2 +/- 5.2. This 75-fold interindividual variation in the binding of benzo[a]pyrene to DNA is similar in magnitude to that found in pharmacogenetic studies of drug metabolism. Aryl hydrocarbon hydroxylase is also inducible by benz[a]anthracene in the bronchial mucosa.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1976

Serum alpha1-antitrypsin in patients with lung cancer or abnormal sputum cytology.

Serum alpha1-antitrypsin Pi types and trypsin inhibitory capacity (TIC) were measured in 72 patients with lung cancer and in 196 patients with abnormal sputum cytology but no clinical evidence of lung cancer to determine if a genetic deficiency of alpha1-antitrypsin (AAT) predisposes to lung cancer. The distributions of Pi types in these two groups of patients and healthy adults are similar. Serum TIC and AAT concentrations are elevated in lung cancer patients. However, patients with abnormal sputum cytology and no clinical lung cancer have normal levels of serum TIC and AAT. A genetic deficiency of AAT probably does not produce a state of increased susceptibility to the carcinogenic effects of respiratory carcinogens such as tobacco smoke.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1976

Binding of (3H)benzo(a)pyrene to DNA in cultured human bronchus.

The studies reported here demonstrate some of the factors affecting the binding of benzo(a)pyrene (BP) to macromolecules in cultured human bronchial mucosa. Bronchial specimens were obtained at either surgy or "immediate" autopsy from patients with and without lung cancer. Grossly normal-appearing pieces of bronchus were cultured in a chemically defined medium, i.e., CMRL 1066 medium containing 1 mug insulin per ml, 0.1 mug beta-retinyl acetate per ml,, 0.1 mug hydrocortisone hemisuccinate per ml, 2 mM L-glutamine, 100 units penicillin G per ml, and 100 mug streptomycin per ml. After 7 days, explant cultures were exposed to [3H]BP, usually for 24 hr, and then binding to total cellular macromolecules was studied by autoradiography, and binding to DNA was measured following isolation of DNA from bronchial mucosal cells. The extent of binding of [3H]BP was dependent on dose of BP, length of exposure to [3H]BP, and temperature. By autoradiography, bronchial epithelial cells bound more [3H]BP than stromal fibroblasts. Both 7,8-benzoflavone and butylated hydroxytoluene appeared to reduce the level of [3H]BP bound to DNA, while nicotine apparently did not alter the level of binding. These studies demonstrate that the bronchial mucosa, an important human cancer target tissue, has the capability to form metabolites of BP which bind to macromolecules including DNA. In addition, 7,8-benzoflavone and butylated hydroxytoluene, both known to alter the microsomal metabolism of BP, reduce the level of [3H]BP bound to DNA.

Benzopyrenes↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The DNA sequence and comparative analysis of human chromosome 20.

The finished sequence of human chromosome 20 comprises 59,187,298 base pairs (bp) and represents 99.4% of the euchromatic DNA. A single contig of 26 megabases (Mb) spans the entire short arm, and five contigs separated by gaps totalling 320 kb span the long arm of this metacentric chromosome. An additional 234,339 bp of sequence has been determined within the pericentromeric region of the long arm. We annotated 727 genes and 168 pseudogenes in the sequence. About 64% of these genes have a 5' and a 3' untranslated region and a complete open reading frame. Comparative analysis of the sequence of chromosome 20 to whole-genome shotgun-sequence data of two other vertebrates, the mouse Mus musculus and the puffer fish Tetraodon nigroviridis, provides an independent measure of the efficiency of gene annotation, and indicates that this analysis may account for more than 95% of all coding exons and almost all genes.

Animals↗