Acute Oral Poisoning Due to Chloracetanilide Herbicides

Chloracetanilide herbicides (alachlor, butachlor, metachlor) are used widely. Although there are much data about chronic low dose exposure to chloracetanilide in humans and animals, there are few data about acute chloracetanilide poisoning in humans. This study investigated the clinical feature of patients following acute oral exposure to chloracetanilide. We retrospectively reviewed the data on the patients who were admitted to two university hospitals from January 2006 to December 2010. Thirty-five patients were enrolled. Among them, 28, 5, and 2 cases of acute alachlor, metachlor, butachlor poisoning were included. The mean age was 49.8 ± 15.4 yr. The poison severity score (PSS) was 17 (48.6%), 10 (28.6%), 5 (14.3%), 2 (5.7%), and 1 (2.9%) patients with a PSS of 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively. The age was higher for the symptomatic patients (1-4 PSS) than that for the asymptomatic patients (0 PSS) (43.6 ± 15.2 vs 55.7 ± 13.5). The arterial blood HCO3 ¯ was lower in the symptomatic patients (1-4 PSS) than that in the asymptomatic patients (0 PSS). Three patients were a comatous. One patient died 24 hr after the exposure. In conclusion, although chloracetanilide poisoning is usually of low toxicity, elder patients with central nervous system symptoms should be closely monitored and cared after oral exposure

An Overview of Three Promising Mechanical, Optical, and Biochemical Engineering Approaches to Improve Selective Photothermolysis of Refractory Port Wine Stains

During the last three decades, several laser systems, ancillary technologies, and treatment modalities have been developed for the treatment of port wine stains (PWSs). However, approximately half of the PWS patient population responds suboptimally to laser treatment. Consequently, novel treatment modalities and therapeutic techniques/strategies are required to improve PWS treatment efficacy. This overview therefore focuses on three distinct experimental approaches for the optimization of PWS laser treatment. The approaches are addressed from the perspective of mechanical engineering (the use of local hypobaric pressure to induce vasodilation in the laser-irradiated dermal microcirculation), optical engineering (laser-speckle imaging of post-treatment flow in laser-treated PWS skin), and biochemical engineering (light- and heat-activatable liposomal drug delivery systems to enhance the extent of post-irradiation vascular occlusion)

Managing distance in international purchasing and supply: a systematic review of literature from the resource-based view perspective

The aim of this research is to find out how the extant literature on international purchasing and supply management (PSM) covers the elements of capability from the perspective of distance. A priori, we form a framework of capability driving elements and conclude that distance—in its multiple dimensions—is the fundamental management aspect in international PSM. Equipped with analytical frameworks and a bottom–up process for identifying emergent themes, a systematic literature review was conducted on a representative sample of scholarly literature on international PSM, using the NVivo analysis software and a data display as tools. We identify several capability relevant themes from the literature, and provide a distance-based a posteriori conceptualisation of international PSM, founded in the information processing theory, with the source-user, user-user and source-source distance types driving the information processing requirements, and loading avoidance, policy-based and enhancement mechanisms determining the information processing capacity

Diagnosis of recurrent head and neck squamous cell carcinoma with 3-[123I]iodo-L-α-methyltyrosine SPET

The distribution of [I-123]iodo-L-alpha -methyltyrosine (I-123-3-IMT) in the tumour region of 21 patients with clinically suspected recurrent squamous cell head and neck carcinoma was studied. Single-photon emission tomography (SPET) imaging of the head and neck region was performed 10 min after the injection of 130-170 MBq I-123-3-IMT using a dual-detector gamma camera. Images were interpreted visually and classified as positive or negative for recurrent disease. In addition, target to background ratios (T/B) were measured using semi-automated region of interest analysis. IMT-SPET results were compared with the data derived from clinicopathological follow-up. IMT-SPET detected recurrent disease in 14 of 15 patients (sensitivity 93%). T/B ratios ranged between 1.5 and 2.4 (mean 1.88). One patient with a small tumour (1.2 cm) had a false-negative result. This is attributed to the limited spatial resolution of the SPET system. Five of six patients were correctly diagnosed to be negative for tumour recurrence. T/B ratios ranged between 1.2 and 1.4 (mean 1.30). In one patient IMT-SPET was positive without evidence of recurrence based on clinicopathological follow up. This finding was probably due to uptake into inflammatory tissue. IMT-SPET appears to be a sensitive tool (93%) for the detection of recurrent head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Further studies with I-123-3-IMT as a metabolic tracer for the detection of head and neck cancer recurrence using SPET are recommended