[Endoscopic treatment of gastroduodenal digestive hemorrhage]. / Tratamiento endoscópico de la hemorragia digestiva gastroduodenal.

Endoscopy is extremely useful for the diagnosis of upper gastrointestinal bleeding. At the present time, therapeutic measures are been used during the endoscopy to stop bleeding. This paper reports the experience of hospital de Talca in the endoscopic treatment of upper gastrointestinal bleeding. Thirty four patients (22 male) with bleeding not originating from esophageal or gastric varices were treated with direct absolute alcohol injection into the bleeding lesions. The procedure was successful in 31 patients. Three of the 34 patients required surgery, but only one of those successfully sclerosed (97% success). There were no complications attributable to the procedure. It is concluded that this therapeutic modality must be implemented in places were gastrointestinal endoscopy is performed.

Effects of Guar-enriched pasta in the treatment of diabetes and hyperlipidemia.

The effect of an alimentary pasta with a 20% (w/w) content of Guar gum was tested in normal volunteers, diabetic and hyperlipidemic patients in different out- and in-patient protocols. Acute experiments (A, B) were carried out in healthy volunteers and in diabetics, by evaluating plasma glucose, triglyceride and insulin changes after a single meal. Plasma glucose and triglyceride rises were almost completely prevented by the pasta in normal volunteers; plasma insulin levels were modified to a lesser extent. In diabetics, the rise of plasma glucose after the meal was significantly delayed. The pasta was also administered for more prolonged periods of time to diabetic and hyperlipidemic patients (experiments C-E). In the first instance, a significant improvement both in the plasma glucose levels, as well as in the daily glucose profile and glycosuria was observed. In hyperlipidemics, a reduction of triglyceride levels was particularly evident; however, in mixed types of hyperlipidemias, a significant hypocholesterolemic effect was also demonstrated. Guar gum pasta may provide a simple dietary addition for the management of common metabolic disorders.

[Kinetic studies of a new method for determining plasma fibrinogen]. / Studi cinetici per un nuovo metodo di determinazione del fibrinogeno plasmatico.

Turbidimetric specific techniques (turbidity end-pot measurement after thrombin addition to the plasma) are widely used for fibrinogen determination. This paper describes a series of tests performed with the aim of establishing a fixed-time kinetic method based on the above mentioned technique. It is know that 1st order or pseudo 1st order reaction are the most valuable for the kinetic determination of substrates. However for this procedures, in contrast to end-point techniques, enzymes with the highest possible Michaelis constant are required. If the Michaelis constant values for the pair fibrinogen/thrombin determined in artificial systems have a molarity in the order of 10(-5)/l when the measurement is made on plasma, antithrombins which are powerful thrombin inhibitors, increase the Michaelis constant to a molarity of 10(-2)/l. For the thrombin in the reaction mixture we have adopted an activity of 1.6 National Institute of Health (NIH) units/100 microliter of plasma; this activity is sufficiently high to induce instantaneous start of fibrinogen polymerization, without affecting the 1st order kinetic. The preliminary studies which have been carried out to evaluate this technique have shown the following characteristics: a) it is both accurate and precise; b) it requires simple and fast operations; c) it may easily be automated with a productivity of about 200 tests/hour on micro centrifugal analyzer.

[Serum lipids in acute myocardial infarction]. / I lipidi ematici nell'infarto miocardico acuto.

The following lipidic fractions were determined in a population of patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and in a control group: total cholesterol, triglycerides, total phospholipids, HDL-cholesterol and HDL-phospholipids. The assays were repeated four times during the hospitalization of the patients admitted for AMI. With respect to total cholesterol, triglycerides and HDL-cholesterol, our findings correlated well with the results published in literature, inasmuch as they confirmed positive interrelation for total cholesterol/AMI and triglycerides/AMI ratios and a negative interrelation for HDL-cholesterol/AMI ratio. During the 20 days following infarction, these three parameters decreased to significantly lower values. The relationship linking total phospholipids and HDL-phospholipids to myocardial infarction has not yet been sufficiently investigated and the few available seem rather contradictory. The results which we have obtained seem to indicate a connection between increased total phospholipids and AMI, whereas HDL-phospholipids do not seem to provide any discriminant indication.

[Automatic determination of chlorides with a centrifugal analyzer (author's transl)]. / Determinazione automatica dei cloruri con un microanalizzatore centrifugo.

We have applied a photometric method for the determination of chlorides, to the centrifugal analyzer Multistat III. This technique, which was already been utilized on automatic instruments, both of the continuous-flow and discrete type, has been criticised by several Authors on account of the insufficient linearity of its results with high concentration of Cl-. The method described in this paper showed a high degree of precision and accuracy, with a good linearity, better in any case than the linearities previously associated with this analytical procedure. Interferences by bilirubin, hemoglobin and lipids are negligible even at very high levels. This procedure, while requiring only minimal manual intervention, produces final result printouts in less than thirty seconds.