Acute large bowel obstruction: Is it mechanical or functional

The value of urgent contrast large bowel enema in the diagnosis and its impact on management of patients with acute large bowel obstruction has been tested. Twenty two patients were the subject of this study. Urgent contrast enema has been done in 13 patients. Correlation between clinical and radiological diagnosis revealed that differentiation between mechanical obstruction and pseudo obstruction can be difficult depending on clinical picture and plain X ray films. The clinical and plain radiological diagnosis was wrong in 22.5% of patients. On the other hand urgent contrast enema had a 100% accuracy. The importance of this investigation is to avoid unnesecessary operations in pseudo obstruction patients who are generally a high surgical risk

Permeability of the round window membrane of guinea pigs in acute suppurative otitis media

Acute suppurative otitis media of guinea pigs had been induced by inoculation of Staphylococcus aureus in the bulla. The permeability of the round window membrane to endotoxin was investigated by detecting endotoxin of the perilymph, applied to the round window using limulus amebocyte lysate test. It was found that endotoxin could pass through round window membranes of animals. With inflammation of middle ear, the permeability of the round window membrane to endotoxin was increased. These results suggest that bacterial toxins and the consequential migration of chemical inflammatory mediators might act as promoting factors of round window membrane permeability

Algunas nefropatias tubulointersticiales (I) / Some tubule interstitial nephropaties (I)

Las lesiones tubulares e intersticiales capaces de producir una insuficiencia renal importante se originan siempre en multiples factores. La simple supresion de los agentes causales, a veces subestimados en la medicina corriente, garantiza muy a menudo una curacion notoria y rapida