[Artificial nutrition in the home. Annual information 1996.Group NADYA-SENPE]. / Nutrición artificial domiciliaria. Informe Anual 1996. Grupo NADYA-SENPE.

Using a simplified questionnaire from the NADYA group, data referring to age, sex, diagnosis, access route, duration, form of administration, complications, and quality of life have been gathered from 1,400 patients (57% male, 43% female) who receive home enteral nutrition, and from 38 patients (20% male and 18% female) who receive home parenteral nutrition. All of these patients come from the 1996 national registry. The most common indication for home enteral nutrition are neoplasias (39%) followed by neurological alterations (33%). The most common access route is oral (48%), followed by a nasogastric tube in 34%, PEG in 10% and surgical ostomies in 7%. The average treatment duration is 6 months. There is an index of 0.74 complications/patient-year (gastrointestinal 0.28 and mechanical alterations 0.19). At the end of the year 58% of the patients continued to use at home enteral nutrition, with a death rate of 17%. The majority of the treated patients presented a severe social disability (28%) or was bed-ridden (22%). The most common indications for home parenteral nutrition are: neoplasia (42%), Crohn_s disease (10%), and mesenteric ischemia (10%). AIDS (8%), radical enteritis (5%), and motility disorders (5%) are less common. In 42% of the cases tunneled catheters are used, and port-a-cath are used in 53%. The average treatment duration is 6.9 months. 1.06 hospitalizations/patient-year have been registered in relation to the nutritional treatment (mainly catheter sepsis). A mortality of 29% is registered, and there is recovery of the oral route in 7.9% of the cases. 50% of the patients present a severe social disability.

Complex of Virus-Like Particles Containing Double-Stranded RNA from Thielaviopsis basicola.

Six randomly selected isolates of Thielaviopsis basicola were found to contain spherical virus-like particles (VLPs) approximately 40 nm in diameter. One isolate, ATCC 34114, selected for further analysis contained a complex of VLPs that sedimented as eight or more bands in sucrose density gradients and contained five size classes of double-stranded RNA. Five discrete precipitation lines were obtained in immunoelectrophoresis, which indicated that this isolate of T. basicola contains five distinct species of VLPs.