ABSTRACT
The Southern Alberta Children's Cancer Program, located within the Alberta Children's Hospital in Calgary, is the referral program for all children with malignancies living in Southern Alberta. The program enrolls approximately 50 new cases each year, the most common diagnosis being acute lymphocytic leukemia. The program has an inpatient unit of 11 beds, a busy outpatient clinic and is the provincial referral centre for all pediatric bone marrow transplants.
Subject(s)
Home Care Services, Hospital-Based/organization & administration , Outpatient Clinics, Hospital/organization & administration , Patient Discharge , Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma/nursing , Alberta , Child , Community Health Nursing/organization & administration , Hospitals, Pediatric/organization & administration , Humans , Oncology Nursing/organization & administration , Pediatric Nursing/organization & administration , Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma/drug therapy , Program Evaluation , Referral and Consultation/organization & administrationABSTRACT
Skin test reactivity and in vitro lymphocyte stimulation responses to varicella-zoster (VZ) were examined in a large normal population ranging in age from 6 months to 93 years. Warning of cellular immunity, as examined by skin delayed hypersensitivity, began at age 40 years. Skin test responses to phytohemagglutinin, however, remained positive into the eighth decade of life. In vitro lymphocyte stimulation responses to VZ were usually positive (stimulation index greater than or equal to 2.5) until age 60 years, after which time levels, as observed with nonimmune individuals, were often demonstrated. Antibody levels, as measured by fluorescent antibody to membrane antigen, remained positive into the ninth and tenth decades of life. This was especially so with a history of reactivation (zoster) VZ infections, while skin test and in vitro responses were rarely positive in those individuals. This cellular, as contrasted with humoral, immunity decreases with advancing age, which may account for a propensity to reactivation of VZ virus.
Subject(s)
Herpesvirus 3, Human/immunology , Adolescent , Adult , Aged , Aging , Antibodies, Viral/analysis , Antigens, Viral/immunology , Child , Child, Preschool , Humans , Immunity, Cellular , Infant , Infant, Newborn , Lymphocytes/immunology , Middle Aged , Phytohemagglutinins/immunology , Skin TestsABSTRACT
Anterior sacral meningoceles are congenital lesions that consist of a spinal fluid-filled sac in the pelvis communicating by a small neck with the spinal subarachnoid space through a defect in the sacrum. The three patients with this disorder presented here had characteristic symptoms snd physical findings: chronic constipation, a pelvic mass, and almost unmistakable roentgenographic changes, but diagnosis was delayed from 11 months to 21 years in all three. After prolonged and complicated treatment, the primary lesions have been surgically eradicated and function is generally satisfactory.
Subject(s)
Meningocele/diagnosis , Sacrum , Child, Preschool , Chronic Disease , Constipation/etiology , Fecal Impaction/etiology , Female , Humans , Infant , Laminectomy , Meningocele/embryology , Meningocele/surgery , Pelvic Neoplasms/etiology , Radiography , Rectal Fistula/etiology , Rectovaginal Fistula/etiology , Sacrum/abnormalities , Sacrum/diagnostic imaging , Urinary Incontinence/etiology , Vagina/abnormalitiesABSTRACT
Average evoked responses obtained from the frontal, parietal and vertex regions, by electrical stimulation of the median nerve or common peroneal nerve, indicate the presence of time locked components which occur as late as 500 to 3500 msec after the stimulus. Spectral analysis shows that these components are distributed mostly in the 1.5 to 2 and 3.6 to 4 Hz frequently bands, and their presence in the evoked response may be due to the driving, by the stimuli of oscillations of similar frequencies which can be seen in the spontaneous activity recorded from the same region.
