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Biomedical subjects

Shalom Michowiz

Publications and source records attributed to Shalom Michowiz.

5 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Spinal anesthesia in infants with ventriculoperitoneal shunt: report of five cases and review of literature.

We describe five cases of children with ventriculoperitoneal shunt who underwent abdominal and perineal procedures under spinal anesthesia. Four of them had been born prematurely, and all had suffered from severe neonatal complications. All of our patients suffered from severe respiratory impairment, that had required mechanical ventilation, and three of them suffered additionally from apnea of prematurity. Four patients had ventriculoperitoneal shunt inserted because of obstructive hydrocephalus and one because of congenital central nervous system anomalies. Two underwent subsequently shunt revision. The benefits of spinal anesthesia in this high-risk population are described. The risks of spinal anesthesia in the presence of a ventricular shunt device, especially infection and dural leakage, are discussed, and the literature about this topic briefly reviewed.

Anesthesia, Spinal↗
PubMed2005

Task switching after cerebellar damage.

The authors of this study investigated task switching following cerebellar damage. The study group consisted of 7 children and adolescents (M age=13.8 years) who underwent surgical removal of a benign posterior fossa tumor. They were tested at a sufficient interval after surgery (M lag=6.13 years) for restoration of normal cognitive skills and intelligence. Although all showed normal learning of the task compared with control participants, when rapid behavioral changes were required (short preparation time), they exhibited behavioral rigidity manifested by enhanced switching cost. These results are in line with another study on serial reaction time with the same patients (A. Berger et al., in press). They have important implications for our understanding of the cognitive sequelae of early cerebellar damage as well as the involvement of the cerebellum in task switching.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Motor and non-motor sequence learning in children and adolescents with cerebellar damage.

Cerebellar involvement in motor and non-motor sequence learning was examined with serial reaction time tasks (SRT). Our sample consisted of 8 children and adolescents who had undergone surgical removal of a benign posterior fossa tumor (PFT) during childhood. None of them had undergone chemotherapy or cranial radiation therapy (CRT). Ages ranged from 1-11 years at surgery and 9-17 years at testing. The children were tested not earlier than 2.5 years after surgery (M = 5.9 years), enabling brain plasticity and recovery of functions. Their performance was compared with a matched control sample. The PFT group was not impaired in the implicit learning of sequences, as reflected in their performance in blocks with a repeated sequence, both before and after a random block. However, in the perceptual task, their performance deteriorated more than that of the control group when a random block was introduced, suggesting that it was more difficult for the patients to respond flexibly or change their response set when encountering changing task demands. These results are in line with another study by our group on task switching with the same patients.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

Ammonium trichloro(dioxoethylene-o,o')tellurate (AS101) sensitizes tumors to chemotherapy by inhibiting the tumor interleukin 10 autocrine loop.

Cancer cells of different solid and hematopoietic tumors express growth factors in respective stages of tumor progression, which by autocrine and paracrine effects enable them to grow autonomously. Here we show that the murine B16 melanoma cell line and two human primary cultures of stomach adenocarcinoma and glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) constitutively secrete interleukin (IL)-10 in an autocrine/paracrine manner. This cytokine is essential for tumor cell proliferation because its neutralization decreases clonogenicity of malignant cells, whereas addition of recombinant IL-10 increases cell proliferation. The immunomodulator ammonium trichloro(dioxoethylene-o,o')tellurate (AS101) decreased cell proliferation by inhibiting IL-10. This activity was abrogated by exogenous addition of recombinant IL-10. IL-10 inhibition by AS101 results in dephosphorylation of Stat3, followed by reduced expression of Bcl-2. Moreover, these activities of AS101 are associated with sensitization of tumor cells to chemotherapeutic drugs, resulting in their increased apoptosis. More importantly, AS101 sensitizes the human aggressive GBM tumor to paclitaxel both in vitro and in vivo by virtue of IL-10 inhibition. AS101 sensitizes GBM cells to paclitaxel at concentrations that do not affect tumor cells. This sensitization can also be obtained by transfection of GBM cells with IL-10 antisense oligonucleotides. Sensitization of GBM tumors to paclitaxel (Taxol) in vivo was obtained by either AS101 or by implantation of antisense IL-10-transfected cells. The results indicate that the IL-10 autocrine/paracrine loop plays an important role in the resistance of certain tumors to chemotherapeutic drugs. Therefore, anti-IL-10 treatment modalities with compounds such as AS101, combined with chemotherapy, may be effective in the treatment of certain malignancies.

Animals↗