Imaging Dural Sinus Thrombosis

The acute onset of irreversible neurological deficit is referred to as a “stroke” and is the third leading cause of death and the major cause of adult long‐term disability in the United States. Obstruction of the venous sinuses by thrombosis accounts for ˜1% of strokes. Thrombosis of the superior saggital sinus is most frequent, with involvement of transverse, sigmoid, and cavernous sinuses occurring less often. Venous thrombosis may involve the dural sinuses, the deep venous system, and the superficial cortical veins separately or in any combination. This unit describes a for imaging dural sinuses by time‐of‐flight magnetic resonance venography (MRV).Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145245/1/cpmia0201.pd

Imaging Cavernous Malformations

This unit describes a for evaluating cavernous malformations (CMs). CMs represent ˜10% to 15% of vascular malformations. They consist of enlarged sinusoidal vascular spaces that have thin walls devoid of smooth muscle and normal endothelium. These form compact masses within central nervous system (CNS) parenchyma or associated structures without normal interspersed tissue. The thin walls lack normal endothelium and are prone to leakage of blood elements.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145308/1/cpmia0202.pd

Cerebral Venous Lesions

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145321/1/cpmia0200.pd

Pilot Study Results for a Novel Behavior Plus Nutrition Intervention for Caregivers of Young Children with Type 1 Diabetes

OBJECTIVE: This pilot study presents results for a parent-based educational intervention targeting mealtime behaviors plus nutrition among families of young children (M age: 5.0±1.2 years) with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM). METHODS: We recruited nine caregivers who participated in the six-session intervention and completed baseline and post-treatment assessments. RESULTS: Children’s mean daily glycemic levels decreased from 185±46 mg/dl to 159±40 mg/dl (p<0.001). There were also decreases in problematic parent and child mealtime behaviors. There was no change in children’s dietary intake indicators. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: It appears promising that our targeted behavior plus nutrition intervention can improve glycemic control and behavior for young children with TDM. Our next step will be to modify the intervention to improve our nutrition education modules. Ultimately, we plan to test the intervention in a large randomized clinical trial to examine if it can yield improvements to children’s diet and glycated hemoglobin levels

Carbonyl sulfide (OCS): Large-scale distributions over North America during INTEX-NA and relationship to CO2

An extensive set of carbonyl sulfide (OCS) observations were made as part of the NASA Intercontinental Chemical Transport Experiment-North America (INTEX-NA) study, flown from 1 July to 14 August 2004 mostly over the eastern United States and Canada. These data show that summertime OCS mixing ratios at low altitude were dominated by surface drawdown and were highly correlated with CO2. Although local plumes were observed on some low-altitude flight legs, anthropogenic OCS sources were small compared to this sink. These INTEX-NA observations were in marked contrast to the early springtime 2001 Transport and Chemical Evolution over the Pacific experiment, which sampled Asian outflow dominated by anthropogenic OCS emissions. To test the gridded OCS fluxes used in past models, the INTEX-NA observations were combined with the sulfur transport Eulerian model (STEM) regional atmospheric chemistry model for a top-down assessment of bottom-up OCS surface fluxes for North America. Initial STEM results suggest that the modeled fluxes underestimate the OCS plant sink by more than 200%. Copyright 2008 by the American Geophysical Union

Idiopathic central precocious puberty in girls: presentation factors

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between premature thelarche and precocious puberty in girls who develop breasts before the age of 8 years. We evaluated the frequencies of the signs associated with breast development and the factors influencing the presentation of girls with idiopathic central precocious puberty (CPP).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>353 girls monitored 0.9 ± 0.7 year after the onset of CPP.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The age at CPP was < 3 years in 2%, 3–7 years in 38% and 7–8 years in 60% of cases. Pubic hair was present in 67%, growth rate greater than 2 SDS in 46% and bone age advance greater than 2 years in 33% of cases. Breast development was clinically isolated in 70 (20%) cases. However, only 31 of these (8.8% of the population) had a prepubertal length uterus and gonadotropin responses to gonadotropin releasing hormone and plasma estradiol. The clinical picture of CPP became complete during the year following the initial evaluation.</p> <p>25% of cases were obese. The increase in weight during the previous year (3.7 ± 1.4 kg) and body mass index were positively correlated with the statural growth and bone age advance (P < 0.0001).</p> <p>There was no relationship between the clinical-biological presentation and the age at puberty, the interval between the onset of puberty and evaluation, or the presence of familial CPP.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The variation in presentation of girls with CPP does not depend on their age, interval between the onset and evaluation, or familial factors. This suggests that there are degrees of hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian activation that are not explained by these factors.</p

Growth And The Growth Hormone-Insulin Like Growth Factor 1 Axis In Children With Chronic Inflammation:Current Evidence, Gaps In Knowledge And Future Directions

Growth failure is frequently encountered in children with chronic inflammatory conditions like juvenile idiopathic arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and cystic fibrosis. Delayed puberty and attenuated pubertal growth spurt is often seen during adolescence. The underlying inflammatory state mediated by pro-inflammatory cytokines, prolonged use of glucocorticoid and suboptimal nutrition contribute to growth failure and pubertal abnormalities. These factors can impair growth by their effects on the growth hormone-insulin like growth factor axis and also directly at the level of the growth plate via alterations in chondrogenesis and local growth factor signaling. Recent studies on the impact of cytokines and glucocorticoid on the growth plate studies further advanced our understanding of growth failure in chronic disease and provided a biological rationale of growth promotion. Targeting cytokines using biologic therapy may lead to improvement of growth in some of these children but approximately one third continue to grow slowly. There is increasing evidence that the use of relatively high dose recombinant human growth hormone may lead to partial catch up growth in chronic inflammatory conditions, although long term follow-up data is currently limited. In this review, we comprehensively review the growth abnormalities in children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and cystic fibrosis, systemic abnormalities of the growth hormone-insulin like growth factor axis and growth plate perturbations. We also systematically reviewed all the current published studies of recombinant human growth hormone in these conditions and discuss the role of recombinant human insulin like growth factor-1

Methods for assessing student learning in the State of Arizona

The effectiveness of a method using scaled scores and a correction for regression to the mean (RTM) designed to measure academic growth attributable to schools was compared to several alternative methods all incorporating simple (unadjusted) growth. Problems with scaled scores and the correction for RTM were discussed. Three alternative methods using normal curve equivalent (NCE), percentile rank (PR), and stanine scores were presented and compared to the scaled score method. A variation of the scaled score method without the correction for RTM was proposed to examine the effects of the correction. Two variations of the NCE and PR score methods were constructed with adjusted passing criteria to examine the effect of accounting for measurement error. Matched-student (1998--1999) Stanford 9 Achievement Test scores from the State of Arizona were used to compute a dichotomous one year's growth indicator (OYG) and a five-point within-state rank-ordered growth indicator (the Star Rating) for each school/grade unit using each of the proposed methods. Results showed that the methods using NCE or PR scores were more likely than the method using scaled scores to assign the same OYG decision to each school/grade unit. The correction for RTM resulted in school/grade units with low initial status having to (inappropriately) make more than one year's worth of growth to achieve a passing OYG decision. The results tended to confirm correlations between initial status and the simple growth indicators in the alternative methods, but for a majority, the magnitudes of the correlations were not large enough to warrant dismissing simple growth. Recommendations from the study were: (1) Scaled scores and the correction for RTM should not be used in any of the methods; (2) Methods that account for error should be used to allow for control over the possibility of misidentification of failing schools as well as the proportion of schools that are identified as needing assistance; (3) The current minimum unit size criterion of eight students should remain, because increasing the number would result in too many units not included in analyses