OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence of diabetes mellitus and impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and to test for bimodality in the plasma glucose distribution in South African Indians. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Subjects were selected by systematic cluster sampling in various areas of Durban. They underwent a modified glucose tolerance test whereby fasting and 2-h postglucose (75 g) plasma glucose levels were measured. The program MIX was used to test for bimodality in the plasma glucose distribution. RESULTS We tested 2,479 subjects (1,441 women and 1,038 men). Based on the revised World Health Organization criteria, the crude prevalence of diabetes mellitus was 9.8%, and the crude prevalence of IGT was 5.8%; the age- and sex-adjusted prevalence was 13.0 and 6.9%, respectively. IGT was significantly more common in men (7.6%) than in women (4.4%). Obesity was a feature of both diabetes mellitus and IGT, particularly in women. Both fasting and 2-h plasma glucose values did not conform to a single normal distribution pattern in any age-group, whereas unequivocal evidence of bimodality was seen in the 55- to 74-year age-group of both sexes for fasting and 2-h glucose and also in the 2-h levels of men in the 25- to 34-year age-group. CONCLUSIONS This study has highlighted a high prevalence of non-insulindependent diabetes mellitus in South African Indians and bimodality in the plasma glucose distribution.
Mit akuten Bauchschmerzen stellen sich viele Patienten in Praxen und Kliniken vor. Den Beschwerden können eine Vielzahl verschiedenster Erkrankungen zugrunde liegen, sowohl harmlose als auch akut lebensbedrohliche. Der folgende Artikel gibt eine Übersicht der wichtigsten Aspekte von Ursachen, Diagnostik und therapeutischem Vorgehen und stellt einen rationalen diagnostischen Algorithmus dar.
Meglumin-Iodrinat has been synthesized as the contrasting part of Myelografin by Schering AG. and tested for lumbar Myelography in animal experiments. The excellent neural and general compatibility justified a first clinical trial. 200 patients were examined, 100 each with following upright or lying down positions. There were no local symptoms, no signs of spinal or cerebral irritation. This is seen to be the main advantage compared with drugs used so far. Intensity of contrast corresponded with that of Conray 60 and Dimer X. The most common complaints like headache and nausea were interpreted as CSF hypotension and can be clearly reduced by lying down. Also the concentration of the contrastmedium diminishes more rapidly with the patient lying down.
<b><i>Background:</i></b> Ever since the first appendectomy has been performed, surgery has been the standard of care for acute appendicitis, with antibiotic therapy being reserved for special situations. Recent studies have shown the feasibility of antibiotic therapy for uncomplicated appendicitis. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> This clinical therapeutic review is based both on author expertise and a selective literature survey in PubMed based on the term ‘appendicitis', combined with the terms ‘acute', ‘complicated', ‘conservative', ‘non-operative', ‘therapy', ‘surgery', and ‘strategy'. According to these search results as well as to the treatment guidelines from the American College of Surgeons, Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract, Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons, European Association of Endoscopic Surgery, and World Society of Emergency Surgery, we present an interdisciplinary treatment concept. <b><i>Results:</i></b> Approximately 90% of patients treated with antibiotics are able to avoid surgery during the initial admission. The other 10% that fail to respond to antibiotics require a rescue appendectomy. Recurrence rates of non-operated patients within 1 year are as high as 20-30%. <b><i>Conclusion:</i></b> In uncomplicated appendicitis without risk factors for failure of non-operative management, a shared decision based on the patient's preferences should be made. In cases with risk factors, appendectomy is still the treatment recommended. If the diagnosis is uncertain or clinical symptoms are rather mild, antibiotic therapy should be started. In complicated appendicitis, management depends on the clinical state, with either immediate surgery or primarily antibiotic therapy and combined with drainage of abscess, being followed by interval appendectomy in some cases.
Intravesical pressure measurement is considered to be the gold standard for the assessment of intra-abdominal pressure. However, this method is indirect and depends on a physiologic bladder function. We evaluated a modified piezoresistive technique and a water-capsule technique for direct and continuous intra-abdominal pressure measurement.Experimental study.Animal research laboratory.Eleven male domestic pigs.In anesthetized and mechanically ventilated animals, CO2 was insufflated to stepwise increase the intra-abdominal pressure to 30 mm Hg. Pressure was then held constant for 9 hrs followed by decompression. Piezoresistive measurement and water-capsule measurement probes were placed intra-abdominally.Readings of intravesical pressure measurement, piezoresistive measurement, and water-capsule measurement were taken hourly. Mean difference to insufflator readings, confidence intervals, and limits of agreement were calculated. Differences between applied pressure and intra-abdominal pressure readings were assessed using a two-factor analysis of variance. No significant differences between methods could be observed. During stepwise pressure increase, limits of agreements were -3.6 to 3.6 mm Hg. Confidence intervals were -3.4 to 3.5 (intravesical pressure measurement), -1.6 to 1.5 (piezoresistive measurement), and 0.5 to 2.9 mm Hg (water-capsule measurement). In the presence of constantly elevated intra-abdominal pressure, limits of agreement ranged from -8.2 to +8.2 mm Hg. Confidence intervals were -0.4 to 6.2 (intravesical pressure measurement), -0.2 to 2.7 (piezoresistive measurement), and 1.1 to 5.1 mm Hg (water-capsule measurement).Both piezoresistive measurement and water-capsule measurement had smaller confidence intervals than intravesical pressure measurement, indicating higher precision, whereas water-capsule measurement had a significant offset. Piezoresistive measurement could be the most suitable device for continuous direct intra-abdominal pressure monitoring in specific patients.
A disproportionately large number of young (less than 50 years) black patients present with colorectal cancer (CRC) in South Africa. Although a phenomenon previously described elsewhere in Africa, its specific molecular basis, whether sporadic or hereditary, has not been established. Molecular analysis of these tumours could link them to the features known to be associated with specific types of hereditary colorectal cancer, specifically through examination of levels of microsatellite instability, promoter methylation and the presence or absence of KRAS and BRAF mutations. The molecular features of cancer tissue samples from 44 CRC cases of black and white patients in South Africa were accordingly retrospectively analysed without knowledge of family history. Compared with samples from older blacks (>50 years), those from young black patients presented more often with a low methylation phenotype (CIMP-L) and high levels of microsatellite instability (MSI-H). Furthermore, as determined by real-time PCR using probe technology, the tissues from 35% of young blacks showed mutations within exon 1 of the KRAS gene. The BRAF-V600E mutation was only evident in the case of a single young black patient. Based on these results it seems likely that a proportion of CRC cases in young black patients from South Africa develop through the accumulation of mutations resulting in a mismatch repair deficiency linked to MSI-H and, possibly, germline mutations in the mismatch repair genes. The features in these patients are consistent with a diagnosis of the Hereditary Non-Polyposis Colorectal Cancer (HNPCC) syndrome. This finding has important implications for patient management and suggests that family members may be at high risk for CRC.
In 97 patients undergoing elective biliary (44) or colorectal (53) surgery, cases were randomly allocated to receive peri-operative prophylaxis with either cefoxitin (Mefoxin; MSD) or metronidazole, penicillin and tobramycin (MPT). Sepsis occurred in 3 of the biliary cases (6,8%) and in 16 of the colorectal cases (30,2%). In the colorectal group sepsis occurred equally in patients receiving cefoxitin (22,2%) or MPT (38,5%) (P = 0,20). Patients who developed sepsis did not have a prolonged hospital stay; strict criteria were used to define sepsis in this study and this explains the apparently high sepsis rate. A positive wound culture at the end of the operation was more common after colorectal surgery (30,2%) than after biliary surgery (4,6%) and was associated with a higher subsequent infection rate (P = 0,02).
The efficacy of standard potency Edmonston-Zagreb (E-Z) measles vaccine was tested in a randomized trial of Black infants in a rural area of South Africa where a measles epidemic was occurring. The following immunization schedules were used: 48 infants aged 4-8.5 months who received 3.9 log 50 infectious units of E-Z vaccine (group A); 48 infants aged 4-8.5 months who received 3.28 log 50 infectious units of Schwarz vaccine (group B); and 28 infants aged greater than 9 months who received 3.28 log 50 infectious units of Schwarz vaccine and served as controls (group C). For infants aged less than 23 weeks who were given either the E-Z or Schwarz vaccine, the number of seropositives was low (28%), irrespective of the pre-vaccination level of measles antibody. There was a higher number of seropositives (68%) among those in the age range greater than 23 weeks to less than 36 weeks who received the E-Z vaccine rather than the Schwarz vaccine (36%). When administered to children aged greater than 36 weeks, the Schwarz vaccine produced a satisfactory, though suboptimal response rate (61%). There was no correlation between seropositivity and pre-vaccination measles antibody status. Use of the standard dose of E-Z vaccine may have been one of the factors for this poor response, and this supports the WHO recommendation that titres higher than the standard potency vaccine are needed if 6-month-old infants are to be successfully immunized against measles.
'%3e%3cpath fill='%23001489' d='M0 0v6h9V0z'/%3e%3cpath fill='%23e03c31' d='M0 0v3h9V0z'/%3e%3cg stroke='%23fff' stroke-width='2'%3e%3cpath id='d' d='m0 0 4.5 3L0 6m4.5-3H9'/%3e%3cuse xlink:href='%23b' stroke='%23ffb81c' clip-path='url(%23c)'/%3e%3c/g%3e%3cuse xlink:href='%23d' fill='none' stroke='%23007749' stroke-width='1.2'/%3e%3c/g%3e%3c/svg%3e)
