Expansion of the European Race of Gremmeniella abietina in Newfoundland, Canada.

Since its detection on ornamental pines in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada, in 1979 (3), the European race causing Scleroderris canker (Gremmeniella abietina (Lagerb.) Morelet) has been detected throughout the Avalon Peninsula at the eastern end of the province. A quarantine was established on the Avalon Peninsula in 1980 to reduce the risk of introducing the disease to the natural red pine (Pinus resinosa Aiton) stands on the remainder of the island. Scots, red, and jack pines were examined at 34 locations in Newfoundland in 1998 and 1999. Infected trees were detected at four locations outside the quarantine zone. In the fall of 1998, the disease was found in plantations at three locations outside the quarantine zone: on Scots pine (P. sylvestris L.) at Bonavista and Catalina (≈135 km north-northeast of the quarantine) and on jack pine (P. banksiana Lamb.) and Scots pine at Sunnyside on Trinity Bay (≈45 km northwest of the quarantine). In 1999, the disease was detected at a fourth location on planted Scots pine in Come By Chance, near the Sunnyside location. Cultures of the pathogen were recovered from branch samples collected at each location and submitted for race determination at the Laurentian Forestry Centre, Sainte-Foy, QB. All isolates were determined based on the polymerase chain reaction diagnostic technique (1) to be the European race of G. abietina. This is a significant range extension from that reported by Laflamme et al. (2). The infected trees originated from the former Back River tree nursery at Salmonier Line that provided planting stock for a provincial reforestation program between 1937 and 1952. Evidence suggests that this nursery was the source of infected stock for plantations at nine locations within the Avalon Peninsula quarantine zone and the four new locations detected during the 1998 and 1999 surveys. This is similar to the pattern described for other nurseries in eastern Canada and the United States (2). The presence of the European race of G. abietina outside of the Avalon Peninsula increases the risk that the disease will become established in the rare natural red pine stands on the rest of the island of Newfoundland. References: (1) R. C. Hamelin et al. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 59:1752, 1993. (2) G. Laflamme et al. For. Chron. 74:561, 1998. (3) P. Singh et al. Plant Dis. 64:1117, 1980.

First Report of Butternut Canker Caused by Sirococcus clavigignenti-juglandacearum in New Brunswick, Canada.

In June 1997, butternut canker was found for the first time in New Brunswick, Canada, at Stickney, Carleton County. A fungal isolate recovered from a young branch canker on butternut (Juglans cinerea L.), cultured on potato dextrose agar, produced spores and cultural morphology as previously described (1). This strain was retained as FSC-758 in the Fredericton Stock Culture Collection at the Atlantic Forestry Centre. The disease was also detected at four other locations in Carleton County along the Saint John River watershed within 20 km of the State of Maine. One stem canker examined at Peel, Carleton County, suggests the disease has been present at this site in New Brunswick for at least 7 years. The butternut tree is at the northeastern edge of its natural range in New Brunswick and, prior to the pathogen's detection, was believed to be far enough from infected butternut in the northeastern United States, Ontario, and Quebec to escape infection. Because planted specimens of butternut exist outside the tree's natural range in New Brunswick and in the neighboring provinces of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, efforts are underway to determine how far the fungus has spread in the Maritime Provinces. Reference: (1) V. M. G. Nair et al. Mycologia 71:641, 1979.

Implications of basing health-care resource allocations on cost-utility analysis in the presence of externalities.

Cost-utility analysis is increasingly being advocated as a tool for helping to establish funding priorities among programs and services in the health-care sector. As currently conducted, however, cost-utility analysis is problematic as a basis for achieving allocative efficiency because it excludes externalities. The exclusion of externalities may bias program ranking in unpredictable ways, leading to a non-optimal allocation of resources. Consideration of externalities also raises a number of distributional issues for the evaluation of health services and highlights the important of developing economic evaluation methods that are consistent with the conceptual basis for allocating resources.

Early diagnosis and outcome of pancreatic abscesses in pancreatitis.

During the past 3.5 years the authors have evaluated 191 patients, both retrospectively and prospectively, to establish factors which might help to identify those patients at higher risk of developing pancreatic abscesses. Those factors included etiology of pancreatitis, number of severity indices present, and specific indices present. Once an abscess developed, severity indices, etiology, and bacteriology were examined as factors in mortality. Six specific severity indices occurred more often (P less than 0.05) in patients developing abscesses. These indices were lactate dehydrogenase evaluation, leukocytosis, metabolic acidosis, hypoxemia, hypocalcemia, and fluid sequestration. In addition, seven of 18 abscess patients had six or more indices present as opposed to five of 161 pancreatitis patients. This was significant at P less than 0.05 level. The etiology of the pancreatitis was not a significant factor. Once an abscess developed, gram-negative infections were polymicrobial (8 of 9 patients) and were associated with a 56 per cent mortality. The gram-positive abscesses (6 patients) were all monomicrobial and none of these patients died. In addition, age greater than 55 years, serum glucose greater than 200 mg%, hematocrit decrease of 10 per cent, and fluid sequestration greater than 6 L were associated with a 50 per cent or greater mortality. The authors believe that patients presenting initially with six or more severity indices, especially the six mentioned above, are at significantly increased risk for developing a pancreatic abscess and those abscess patients with gram-negative abscesses, as well as having any of the four severity indices previously mentioned, have a much worse prognosis.

Elimination of nucleolus organizers in a case of 13/14 Robertsonian translocation.

A Robertsonian translocation 45,XY, t(13q;14q) was detected in the leukocyte cultures of a phenotypically normal male. Silver staining technique for nucleolus organizer regions revealed that both acrocentrics involved in the translocation had lost their nucleolus organizers.