Bronchoscopy of Lung Cancer

Lung cancer is a leading cancer site in men and women with a high incidence and mortality rate. Most patients are diagnosed when the disease has already spread. An early, detection and immediate and accurate histological or cytological diagnosis are essential for a hopeful outcome. In most patients, bronchoscopy is the method of choice in establishing a suspected lung neoplasm. With the rigid and flexible method, two complementary techniques are available. The methods bear a very low mortality rate if sufficient monitoring and resuscitative instrumentation is available. Rigid bronchoscopy offers the possibility of obtaining large biopsy specimens from the tumorous tissue and provides an effective tool in the control of major haemorrhage. However, it cannot be used for the inspection of further peripherally located parts of the bronchial system and needs general anaesthesia. In contrast, the flexible method can be quickly and readily performed at practically any location using portable equipment. Bronchi can be inspected up to the 8th order and with bronchial washing, forceps biopsy, brush biopsy and fluorescence bronchoscopy techniques with a high diagnostic yield are available. This holds true, especially if these sampling techniques are used as complementary methods

Cytotoxicity of alpha-particle-emitting astatine-211-labelled antibody in tumour spheroids: no effect of hyperthermia.

The high linear energy transfer, alpha-particle-emitting radionuclide astatine-211 (211At) is of interest for certain therapeutic applications; however, because of the 55- to 70-microm path length of its alpha-particles, achieving homogeneous tracer distribution is critical. Hyperthermia may enhance the therapeutic efficacy of alpha-particle endoradiotherapy if it can improve tracer distribution. In this study, we have investigated whether hyperthermia increased the cytotoxicity of an 211At-labelled monoclonal antibody (MAb) in tumour spheroids with a radius (approximately 100 microm) greater than the range of 211At alpha-particles. Hyperthermia for 1 h at 42 degrees C was used because this treatment itself resulted in no regrowth delay. Radiolabelled chimeric MAb 81C6 reactive with the extracellular matrix antigen tenascin was added to spheroids grown from the D-247 MG human glioma cell line at activity concentrations ranging from 0.125 to 250 kBq ml(-1). A significant regrowth delay was observed at 125 and 250 kBq ml(-1) in both hyperthermia-treated and untreated spheroids. For groups receiving hyperthermia, no increase in cytotoxicity was seen compared with normothermic controls at any activity concentration. These results and those from autoradiographs indicate that hyperthermia at 42 degrees C for 1 h had no significant effect on the uptake or distribution of this antitenascin MAb in D-247 MG spheroids

Site factors determining epiphytic lichen distribution in a dieback-affected spruce-fir forest on Whiteface Mountain, New York: stemflow chemistry

Epiphytic lichen diversity in a dieback-affected forest of red spruce (Picea rubens Sarg.) and balsam fir (Abies balsamea (L.) Mill.) on Whiteface Mountain, New York, U.S.A., was higher on dead compared with living trees and on fir compared with spruce. Diversity differed more between living and dead spruce than between living and dead fir. Cover of all lichen species that occurred on more than 50% of the sample trees, except for two species, decreased with increasing mean concentration of NO3– in stemflow. Concentrations of NO3– were higher on living spruce compared with dead spruce and with living and dead fir. The negative correlations between lichen cover and NO3– concentration may reflect either a decrease of lichen abundance caused by toxic effects of higher NO3– concentrations or a removal of NO3– from stemflow by epiphytic lichens. Experimental exposure of Hypogymnia physodes to NaNO3 reduced chlorophyll concentrations. This result, together with estimations of lichen and needle biomass, indicates that a dependence of lichen cover on NO3– concentrations in stemflow may be the cause for the negative correlations. The sulphur concentration in stemflow did not affect lichen abundance on Whiteface Mountain. The manganese concentration in stemflow may have an effect on single species

Determining the Physical Properties of the B Stars I. Methodology and First Results

We describe a new approach to fitting the UV-to-optical spectra of B stars to model atmospheres and present initial results. Using a sample of lightly reddened stars, we demonstrate that the Kurucz model atmospheres can produce excellent fits to either combined low dispersion IUE and optical photometry or HST FOS spectrophotometry, as long as the following conditions are fulfilled: 1) an extended grid of Kurucz models is employed, 2) the IUE NEWSIPS data are placed on the FOS absolute flux system using the Massa & Fitzpatrick (1999) transformation, and 3) all of the model parameters and the effects of interstellar extinction are solved for simultaneously. When these steps are taken, the temperatures, gravities, abundances and microturbulence velocities of lightly reddened B0-A0 V stars are determined to high precision. We also demonstrate that the same procedure can be used to fit the energy distributions of stars which are reddened by any UV extinction curve which can be expressed by the Fitzpatrick & Massa (1990) parameterization scheme. We present an initial set of results and verify our approach through comparisons with angular diameter measurements and the parameters derived for an eclipsing B star binary. We demonstrate that the metallicity derived from the ATLAS 9 fits to main sequence B stars is essentially the Fe abundance. We find that a near zero microturbulence velocity provides the best-fit to all but the hottest or most luminous stars (where it may become a surrogate for atmospheric expansion), and that the use of white dwarfs to calibrate UV spectrophotometry is valid.Comment: 17 pages, including 2 pages of Tables and 6 pages of Figures. Astrophysical Jounral, in pres

A Subject Catalog of the Peat Research Materials in the Natural Resources Library

Peat research materials from the Natural Resources Library are located in the University Digital Conservancy and in the University Libraries catalog.This book is a subject catalog of the peat research materials in the Natural Resources Library at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. The content is organized into two parts. Part A contains the complete, subject catalog. Each entry in the subject catalog includes basic descriptive information, such as author, title, date, pagination, and publisher. The call number following each entry shows the location of the item in the Natural Resources Library. Part B is a Subject Index. The subject terms used here are basically keywords (uncontrolled vocabulary) from the documents. The keywords represent words from titles, abstracts, and in some cases, the actual content of the documents being indexed. The bulk of the subject headings are constructed around two principal terms, peat and peatlands. The distinction is whether peat the material is the focus of study or whether peat is looked at primarily in a geographical context. For example, a laboratory analysis of sphagnum would be found under the heading peat, whereas a discussion of wildlife ecology would be indexed under peatlands. Both peat and peatlands are extensively subdivided. When using this type of index, several terms must often be considered to ensure a complete search. Some basic rules for searching apply. Scientific or non-technical terminology may be used. Hierarchical terminology is common. Subject matter may be indexed at wildlife and birds, at horticulture and vegetables. Words and phrases with similar meanings often appear. One needs to look at trace elements and heavy metals, at pyrolysis and combustion, for example. Each term in the Subject Index is followed by a specific page reference, to facilitate moving through the book. A companion volume entitled The Farnham Peat Collection: Author Catalog of Peat Research Materials in the Natural Resources Library provides additional access to these materials. The peat holdings in the Natural Resources Library are almost entirely the personal library of Dr. Rouse S. Farnham, professor of Soil Science at the University of Minnesota, now retired. Dr. Farnham donated his library to the Natural Resources Research Institute at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, in 1986

Partial pharmacologic blockade shows sympathetic connection between blood pressure and cerebral blood flow velocity fluctuations

Cerebral autoregulation (CA) dampens transfer of blood pressure (BP)-fluctuations onto cerebral blood flow velocity (CBFV). Thus, CBFV-oscillations precede BP-oscillations. The phase angle (PA) between sympathetically mediated low-frequency (LF: 0.03–0.15 Hz) BP- and CBFV-oscillations is a measure of CA quality. To evaluate whether PA depends on sympathetic modulation, we assessed PA-changes upon sympathetic stimulation with and without pharmacologic sympathetic blockade. In 10 healthy, young men, we monitored mean BP and CBFV before and during 120-second cold pressor stimulation (CPS) of one foot (0 °C ice-water). We calculated mean values, standard deviations and sympathetic LF-powers of all signals, and PAs between LF-BP- and LF–CBFV-oscillations. We repeated measurements after ingestion of the adrenoceptor-blocker carvedilol (25 mg). We compared parameters before and during CPS, without and after carvedilol (analysis of variance, post-hoc t-tests, significance: p < 0.05). Without carvedilol, CPS increased BP, CBFV, BP-LF- and CBFV-LF-powers, and shortened PA. Carvedilol decreased resting BP, CBFV, BP-LF- and CBFV-LF-powers, while PAs remained unchanged. During CPS, BPs, CBFVs, BP-LF- and CBFV-LF-powers were lower, while PAs were longer with than without carvedilol. With carvedilol, CPS no longer shortened resting PA. Sympathetic activation shortens PA. Partial adrenoceptor blockade abolishes this PA-shortening. Thus, PA-measurements provide a subtle marker of sympathetic influences on CA and might refine CA evaluation

Previous Experiences with Epilepsy and Effectiveness of Information to Change Public Perception of Epilepsy

Differences with regard to the effectiveness of health information and attitude change are suggested between people with direct, behavioral experiences with a health topic and people with indirect, nonbehavioral experiences. The effects of three different methods of health education about epilepsy, frequently used in health education practice, are assessed in a pretest posttest design with control groups, controlling for experiences with epilepsy. Subjects were 132 students from teacher-training colleges. After all treatments, attitudes, and knowledge about epilepsy were changed in a positive way. Treatments were found to be equally effective. Before treatment, direct behavioral experiences were related to knowledge and a more positive attitude towards epilepsy. After treatment, subjects with direct behavioral experiences with epilepsy showed less change of attitude and knowledge as compared with subjects with indirect experiences. Direct experiences appear to restrain the processing of new information and attitude change