Doses in the vicinity of mobile X-ray equipment in a children's intensive care unit.

Most of the patients in the intensive care unit for children are newborns and infants having an infection of the central nervous system, with systemic septic and respiratory infections. Therefore, mobile X-ray equipment including mobile shields is routinely used for diagnosis of the respiratory tract, heart and endovascular catheterization. The aim of this work was to determine the radiation exposure to the children in the vicinity of the exposed patient in the same or next room. Three measurement runs were carried out with thermoluminescence dosimetry system. The results show that the homogeneity of the irradiation field is adequate, the exposure of children to radiation in the vicinity of the exposed patient in the same or next room is very low, practically in the range of the lowest detectable dose. The entrance dose on the breast of the patient was found to be 0.07 mSv. Therefore, there is no basis for the risk estimation of genetic, leukemogenic and cancerogenic detriment.

[Radiographic pulmonary changes in children with tuberculosis]. / Radiografske plucne promjene u djece s tuberkulozom.

Radiographs of the chest of 204 patients with recently diagnosed tuberculosis have been analyzed in terms of nature of changes, localization, age and interrelationship between these parameters. Patients have been treated for three years and a half. Their ages ranged from 0 to 14 years (SD 6.4 +/- 4.2 years). Lymphadenopathy was the commonest radiographic change accounting for 84.3% of all the patients (172 pts) and was more frequently encountered in the youngest age group from 0 to 4 years (p < .0001) and in the right hilomediastinal area (p < .0001). Parenchymal changes were seen in 125 (61.2%) patients, similarly, at an earlier age (p < .03), and more commonly on the right side. Other diseases such as atelectasis and miliary tuberculosis were less frequently encountered, except pleuritis which was found in 13 (6.3%) patients. The authors stress the importance of chest radiography in the diagnosis and follow-up of tuberculosis in young children.

Growth factors in human tumors.

Various human tumor tissues contain different growth factors. In some cases progression of tumors is paralleled by elevated levels of these substances in blood or in tumor tissue. There is evidence that these growth promoting peptides might stimulate tumor growth. The growth of most tumors was associated with insulin-like substances (MW 45,000). We isolated and purified a substance immunologically cross-reactive with insulin (SICRI) from human melanoma. We found the molecular weight of affinity purified SICRI to be approximately 120,000. Our in vitro experiments with human renal carcinoma cells and growth factors suggest an important role of these molecules in tumor progression.