ABSTRACT
The cover of cutaneous wounds with cultured epidermis can be significantly improved by prior backing of the epithelium with meshed silastic sheets, whereas other materials, such as vaseline gauze, foam rubber etc., are not as satisfactory. Meshed silastic is affixed to the epithelium surface just before the enzymatic detachment from the culture flask is completed. Thus it protects the delicate epithelial membrane from injury during transplantation and helps to control its polar orientation. In addition, the silastic mesh prevents the graft, which initially does not possess any horny layer, from drying up and allows adequate drainage of wound secretions. Cultured epidermal grafts prepared by this method take very well (more than 90%) attaching to the wound bed quite firmly within a week.
Subject(s)
Bandages , Biological Dressings , Silicone Elastomers , Skin Transplantation , Surgical Mesh , Culture Techniques , Humans , Wound HealingABSTRACT
Following an infection with mycoplasma pneumoniae, an anti-Pr-antibody developed in a hitherto healthy man, aged 41. Within a period of 5 days the antibody caused a severe autoimmune hemolytic reaction. The patient died on the fifth day after admission due to hemolysis and uremia. The autoantibody showed a reactivity with a broad thermal range from 4 degrees C to 37 degrees C. As an initial warning sign, the patient presented an expressed livedo reticularis. Massive wholeblood exchanges could not stop the fatal process.
Subject(s)
Agglutinins/analysis , Anemia, Hemolytic, Autoimmune/immunology , Adult , Antibody Specificity , Blood Grouping and Crossmatching , Cryoglobulins , Erythrocytes/immunology , Exchange Transfusion, Whole Blood , Humans , Male , Pneumonia, Mycoplasma/immunologyABSTRACT
A hitherto healthy adult man developed paroxysmal cold agglutinin disease following an infection of the upper respiratory tract with mycoplasma pneumoniae. Despite continuous blood exchange he died of massive intravascular hemolysis and uremia after 5 days. A presenting striking symptom of this rapidly fatal disease was the acute onset of generalized livedo reticularis. The disease was caused by the rare anti Pr-cold agglutinins which are capable of eliciting hemolysis even in low titers and, in the present case, at body temperature.