Subject(s)
Immunoproliferative Small Intestinal Disease/complications , Lymphoma, B-Cell/etiology , Aged , Celiac Disease/diet therapy , Celiac Disease/pathology , Diagnosis, Differential , Female , Humans , Hypothyroidism/complications , Immunoproliferative Small Intestinal Disease/diet therapy , Immunoproliferative Small Intestinal Disease/epidemiology , Immunoproliferative Small Intestinal Disease/pathology , Lymphoma, B-Cell/pathology , United States/epidemiologyABSTRACT
Single random samples of urine were collected from 50 control subjects; 27 patients with chronic pancreatitis; 19 with acute pancreatitis; 6 with acute on chronic pancreatitis; five in the recovery phase of acute attack; four patients with pseudocysts. Salivary (S) and pancreatic (P) amylase values were measured by cellulose acetate electrophoresis. The P amylase values always exceeded those of S amylase in the control specimens. In acute pancreatitis, both the lower and upper levels of total and P amylase were considerably higher than in the controls, and these high values tended to return to normal during the recovery phase of acute pancreatitis. The S amylase values were often very low or undetectable during the acute phase. Values for P amylase exceeded control values in patients with pseudocysts even in the presence of chronic pancreatitis. In chronic calcific pancreatitis, S amylase was higher than P amylase. We conclude that P amylase is always greater than S amylase in normal urine specimens, and a change in this pattern may be helpful in diagnosing various forms of pancreatitis.
Subject(s)
Amylases/urine , Pancreas/enzymology , Saliva/enzymology , Humans , Pancreatitis/enzymology , Pancreatitis/urineABSTRACT
Two patients, an adult and a child, are reported who presented with factitious hematuria secondary to self-induced finger sticks with contamination of unwitnessed urine samples. Feigned illness of this kind may be more common than generally appreciated.
Subject(s)
Hematuria/etiology , Munchausen Syndrome/complications , Child , Divorce , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Munchausen Syndrome/etiology , Munchausen Syndrome/psychology , Substance-Related Disorders/complicationsABSTRACT
An increasing body of evidence implies that the results of pharmacological studies of blood vessels may depend on the presence of an intact layer of endothelial cells inside the blood vessels. This is often inadvertently removed during the early part of the experiment and it is thus necessary to have some means of determining whether the endothelium is intact or has suffered extensive damage. Previous reports describe a stain that will enable the endothelial cells to be visualized, however we find that in the cerebral vasculature this approach is unsatisfactory in that it provides a gross underestimate of the amount of intact endothelium. A modification of the original procedure is described that provides results that correspond well with those of scanning or transmission electron microscopy.
