High serum glutamic acid levels in patients with carcinoma of the pancreas.

High levels of glutamic acid and normal levels of glutamine were found in the blood of all but one of ten patients with carcinoma of the pancreas. No changes of the concentration in blood of these two amino acids were observed in 49 patients suffering from several diseases including malignant tumours. Although the mechanism of the rise of serum glutamic acid is difficult to explain at present, it may have some diagnostic value.

[Hepatic complications in the postoperative of cardiac surgery]. / Complicaciones hepáticas en el postoperatorio de la cirugía cardíaca.

In a study of fifty patients subjected to cardiac surgery nine (18%) had immediate post-operative liver complications. These included persistente jaundice, an increase in hepatomegaly and elevation of the alkaline phosphatase. In these and the rest of the cases there were extra-hepatic complications such as hyposystole, infarct, the post-pericardiotomy syndrome as related to the heart. Pulmonary complications were of infectious nature and a general complication was sepsis. These complications were sufficiently important to relate them etiologically to the hepatic disorder. Especially important is right hyposystole and it or tricuspid insufficiency can be blamed for the hepatic disorder in some of these patient. Nonetheless, these hepatic complications are seen less frequently now that we are giving effective treatment to the tricuspid insufficiency during the surgical intervention. We observed the clinical picture known as "benign postoperative cholestasis" in only two patients. Hepatitis with jaundice was seen in four patients during one to three months postoperatively. This was HB hepatitis and its course was more prolonged than that usually seen in Mexico, and it turned into chronic hepatitis in four patients. Biopsies done in one case a six months and in the other at nine months post-operatively showed the picture of chronic aggresive hepatitis. In those patients who did not have hepatic complications a late liver evaluation showed an improvement as compared to the pre-operative condition which was parallel to the hemodynamic improvement.