An epidemiological approach to acute renal failure in children

The records of 630 pediatric patients with acute renal failure were analysed. Of all patients admitted to the hospital during the same period, 5 per cent had acute renal failure. Newborns and infants constituted 79 per cent of the patients with ARF although this age group comprised only 44 per cent of the general pediatric patients. Acute gastroenteritis and septicaemia were the leading causes of ARF up to 8 years of age. Acute glomerulonephritis took the first place after 8 years of age. Mortality rate of our patients with acute renal failure was 28 per cent.

Sister chromatid exchange in lymphocytes of patients with cancer of the larynx

The frequency of sister chromatid exchange (SCE) was studied in cultured peripheral lymphocytes from 15 untreated patients with carcinoma of the larynx and 10 healthy control subjects. Bromodeoxyuridine-incorporated chromosomes were treated with Hoechst 33258 and stained according to conventional methods. To measure SCE frequency, at least 15 mitoses per donor were evaluated. The SCE values were found to be higher in cancer cases than in control cases.

Beneficial effect of thalidomide and ciclosporin combination in heterotopic cardiac transplantation in rats

The effect of thalidomide on the prevention of early rejection was studied in heterotopic cardiac transplants between ACI (donors) and Lewis (recipients) rats, in combination with subtherapeutic doses of ciclosporin. Although allografts treated solely with thalidomide (5 mg/kg/day intraperitoneally) survived longer than controls (9.4 +/- 2.7 and 6.3 +/- 0.6 days, respectively, p less than 0.001), the survival rates of animals treated with low dose ciclosporin (1.25 mg/kg/day intraperitoneally) plus thalidomide (1.25, 2.5 and 5 mg/kg/day) were significantly better at 21 days (70, 88.9 and 88.9%, respectively), compared to 55.6% in those treated with ciclosporin (1.25 mg/kg/day) alone. Graft survival rates at 90 days were not significantly different in the thalidomide-ciclosporin combination groups (60, 77.8 and 55.6%, respectively) compared to the ciclosporin group alone (55.6%). We conclude that thalidomide is effective in preventing early rejection of rat cardiac allograft when combined with subtherapeutic doses of ciclosporin, thus avoiding the dose-dependent side effects of ciclosporin in the early posttransplant period.

Long-term prognosis of poststreptococcal acute glomerulonephritis

Five hundred and eighty-eight patients diagnosed as having PSAGN were treated at our University Hospital and called in for a reevaluation study in 1988 to determine the long-term prognosis of the disease. Fifty-nine patients responded to the follow-up call, all of them being in good physical health. The blood pressure, urinalysis, serum creatinine, blood urea and beta 1C globulin levels were within normal limits. These results led us to the conclusion that the long-term prognosis was favorable in our PSAGN patients since chronic renal failure had not been encountered.