[Diagnostic and prognostic value of plasma ANP determination after myocardial infarction]. / Diagnostische und prognostische Bedeutung der Plasma-ANP-Messung nach Myokardinfarkt.

In the present study the prognostic value of ANP measurement was investigated in 52 patients undergoing coronary angiography. 22 normotensive and 30 hypertensive subjects were included. A significant inverse correlation between left ventricular ejection fraction (EF) and plasma ANP was found in normotensives, but not in hypertensives. In patients with chronic myocardial infarction, there was no difference in ANP levels compared to patients without infarction in either group, provided that EF was normal. However, hypertensives showed a 35% increase in ANP compared to normotensives. This was true for subjects with and without myocardial infarction. These results show that in normotensives ANP levels have a prognostic value on a statistical rather than an individual basis. This does not apply to hypertensives, whose ANP level is increased by factors other than impaired ejection fraction.

[Polycythaemia as sole symptom of renal adenoma (author's transl)]. / Polyzythämie als einziges Symptom eines Nierenadenoms bei 2 Kindern.

In two children, a 9 year-old boy and a 10 1/2 year-old girl, who presented with polycythaemia as the only symptom, the expected renal tumour was only found after exclusion of all other causes of polycythaemia. The delay in diagnosis was caused by technically inadequate intravenous urograms, which were erroneously passed as normal. In one child low kv X-ray exposition of the kidneys led to the diagnosis of a renal tumour. In the other child high-dose urography and tomography gave the indication for selective angiography. Normalization of the red blood count postoperatively verifies the connection between preoperative erythrocytosis and the renal tumour. Histologically both cases proved to be renal adenomas, which are extremely rare in childhood.