Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0018801 (heart failure)
 72,216 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

53 children with infective pericarditis were seen at the University College Hospital, Ibadan, between 1967 and 1976. Their ages ranged from 10 days to 15 years but 53% of them were aged 5 years and below. Cough, fever, and breathlessness were the most common symptoms; cardiac decompensation was evident in over 30% of them, 23% had muffled heart sounds, but a pericardial friction rub was audible in only one. The main pathogens identified were Mycobacterium tuberculosis (11 cases), Staphylococcus aureus (11 cases), Escherichia coli (4 cases), Pneumococcus and Pseudomonas (3 cases each). Most of the patients had some other associated infection--such as, bronchopneumonia (12 cases), empyema thoracis (10 cases), lung abscess (10 cases), septicaemis (6 cases), and osteomyelitis (3 cases). Errors in diagnosis were common, the diagnosis having been missed in 72% of the cases identified at necropsy. Even if the correct diagnosis had been made during life and appropriate treatment given, the mortality rate (36%) was high. It is suggested that the onset of cardiac failure in any child with bronchopneumonia, empyema, or lung abscess should always arouse a suspicion of infective pericarditis.
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PMID:Infective pericarditis in Nigerian children. 47 15

Cardiac infections after operations are infrequent but, when present, are often fatal. The 14 autopsied patients in whom purulent pericarditis developed after thoracic operations over an 88 year period at The Johns Hopkins Hospital were studied. Purulent pericarditis developed after cardiac operations in 10 and after pulmonary resections in 4. In 12 of the 14 cases the pericardial sac had been opened. Associated postoperative infection, present in 13 patients, included mediastinitis in 7 and empyema in 3. Staphylococcus was the infection organism in half of the patients. Associated cardiac infection, including endocarditis, myocardial abscess, and graft infection, was present in 5 (36 per cent) patients. Death occurred within 2 months of operation in 11 (79 per cent) patients; it was due to infection in 9, cardiac tamponade in 4, and arrhythmias and heart failure in one. The diagnosis of purulent pericarditis was made before death in only 5 (36 per cent) cases, in part owing to masking of the usual signs of pericarditis in the postoperative patient. Since the introduction of antibiotics, the over-all incidence of purulent pericarditis has decreased. However, pericardial infection after thoracotomy has increased tenfold, and patients undergoing cardiac operations in particular provide a new and increasing population at risk for this disease.
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PMID:A clinicopathological study of post-thoracotomy purulent pericarditis. A continuing problem of diagnosis and therapy. 83 29

Physicians analyzed December 1982-November 1989 data on 48 2-60 month old children with empyema thoracis at the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital in southeastern Nigeria to determine the incidence and etiology of empyema thoracis in this region. The incidence rate stood at 2/1000 pediatric admissions. 3 children died (6.3%), all of heart failure. 47 children suffered from fever, cough, and breathlessness, the symptoms for pneumonia. Even though bronchopneumonia is a common complication of measles which occurs frequently in Calabar, only 3 children (6.25%) also had measles. The most frequent complication of this accumulation of pus in the thoracic cavity was congestive heart failure (16 cases). 47 patients suffered from anemia (hemoglobin levels 11 gm/dl). Hemoglobin levels of 54% of all patients decreased over time to 8 gm/dl. In fact, 2 children had hemoglobin levels of 4.4 gm/dl and they experienced cardiac failure. Laboratory personnel were only able to examine pleural aspirates from 37 patients. They did not detect any organisms in 27% of these aspirates. This may have been due to parent's widespread practice of giving medication to all the children before coming to the hospital. 45.9% of the aspirates only grew Staphylococcus aureus while another 8.1% grew it and other pathogens. About 90% of the pathogens were resistant to ampicillin and penicillin and almost 90% were sensitive to cloxacillin, gentamicin, and erythromycin. Cloxacillin was very expensive and parenteral erythromycin was unavailable. Nevertheless the pediatricians used parenteral gentamicin and cloxacillin. The parents were responsible for buying the antibiotics which tended to be costly. All the patients required emergency closed tube thoracostomy drainage within 24 hours of admission. 83.3% remained in the hospital for 2 weeks and 33.3% for 1 month. Despite the rarity of empyema, long hospitalization and expensive drugs make it an important disease in Calabar.
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PMID:Clinical and bacteriological study on childhood empyema in south eastern Nigeria. 150 92

Fifty-four patients have undergone abdominocervical oesophagectomy for oesophageal carcinoma as an alternative to a conventional transthoracic approach. Their median age was 69 years, with a range of 38-90 years, and 39 per cent of patients had chronic cardiorespiratory disease. Lymph node metastases were found in 80 per cent of patients and transmural tumour spread in 91 per cent. Median duration of operation was 2.2 h (range 1.75-6.0 h), and median transfusion requirement was 2.5 units (range 0-8 units). Respiratory complications were common (41 per cent) and caused all six postoperative deaths (11 per cent). Other complications were atrial fibrillation (26 per cent), transient recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy (11 per cent), cardiac failure (2 per cent), stroke (2 per cent), subphrenic abscess (2 per cent) and empyema (2 per cent). There were two anastomotic leaks (4 per cent), clinically manifest as temporary salivary fistulae. There have been 32 deaths from recurrent carcinoma, with a median duration of survival of 14 months (range 4-53 months). Fifteen patients are still alive, with a median survival of 16.5 months (range 3-49 months); the current 3-year survival rate is 10 per cent. All patients resumed normal swallowing after operation, but 11 of them developed anastomotic strictures requiring a median of three dilatations. Avoidance of formal thoracotomy by the abdominocervical approach may allow more rapid oesophagectomy without increasing the risk of postoperative death and gives a quality of palliation at least equivalent to that of conventional transthoracic oesophageal excision.
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PMID:Abdominocervical (transhiatal) oesophagectomy in the management of oesophageal carcinoma. 169 13

Three children with suppurative arthritis and osteomyelitis are described to emphasise that delayed or incorrect diagnosis may lead to serious cardiopulmonary complications. In two patients, bilateral bronchopneumonia developed with pneumatocoeles, pneumothorax and empyema. The other had cardiac failure from septic pericarditis. In one case, disarticulation of the knee was needed as a life-saving measure, and the other leg developed an infected pseudarthrosis of the tibia. The causative organism in each case was staphylococcus aureus and no evidence of immunodeficiency was demonstrated.
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PMID:Complications of suppurative arthritis and osteomyelitis in children. 174 34

The objective of this study was the prospective evaluation of the relationship between serum and pleural fluid antibody levels to mycobacterial antigens and their role in the diagnosis of tuberculous pleuritis. The setting was a tertiary care medical center. Thirteen patients with tuberculous pleuritis and 53 control subjects with pleural effusion (22 with carcinoma, 17 with cardiac failure, and 14 with empyema or parapneumonic effusion) were studied. The level of IgG was measured by ELISA. The median titers of antibody to both Mycobacterium tuberculosis and M avium were significantly higher in the serum and pleural fluid of the patients with tuberculosis than in the control patients. There was a very close relationship between the levels of M tuberculosis (r = 0.95) and M avium (r = 0.94) antibodies in the serum and pleural fluid. We concluded that the levels of antimycobacterial IgG in pleural fluid, adjusted to constant protein concentration, are very closely related to the serum levels. Therefore, these antibodies in the pleural fluid probably result from passive diffusion from serum and not local production. Measurement of pleural fluid antibody levels will not add diagnostic sensitivity or specificity to that achieved with serodiagnosis.
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PMID:Antimycobacterial antibody levels in pleural fluid as reflection of passive diffusion from serum. 201 10

Eleven patients with intractable rheumatoid arthritis were treated with fractionated total lymphoid irradiation at a total dose of 20 Gy. Lasting improvement in clinical symptoms was found in four patients during treatment and the remaining patients experienced a similar benefit within 2 months of irradiation. There was marked reduction in exacerbations and the number of joints involved. Morning stiffness, joint swelling and tenderness decreased. Complications included severe fatigue during treatment and acute bacterial arthritis in multiple joints in one patient. Four of the patients have since died, one of renal failure and another of cardiogenic shock following surgery 3 and 24 months after total lymphoid irradiation. Both had generalised amyloidosis. The third patient developed joint empyema and died of toxic cardiac failure. The fourth died 3 months after resection of a Kaposi's sarcoma complicated by wound infection which responded to treatment. Immunologically, total lymphoid irradiation resulted in suppression of the absolute lymphocyte count and a reduction in T-helper cells, while the number of T-suppressor cells remained unchanged. These data provide evidence of T-cell involvement in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis. Total lymphoid irradiation can induce sustained improvement in clinical disease activity, but severe, possibly fatal, side-effects cannot be ignored.
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PMID:Total lymphoid irradiation of intractable rheumatoid arthritis. 294 4

Levels of carcinoembryonic antigen(CEA)in the serum and pleural effusion in malignancies (65) and benign (25) of lung were determined. There are 20 cases of adenocarcinoma, 16 undifferentiated carcinoma, 7 squamous cell carcinoma, 4 alveolar carcinoma, 12 unclassified carcinoma, 1 polymorphous adenoma, 1 mesothelioma, 1 thymoma, 1 metastatic cancer from kidney and 2 metastatic breast cancer. In the benign lesions, there are 20 tuberculosis, 2 heart failure, 1 pneumonia, 1 empyema and 1 cirrhosis. The mean of the CEA level in the serum of lung cancer group was 12.63 ng/ml as compared with that of the tuberculosis group, 3.01 ng/ml (P less than 0.01). The level of CEA in pleural fluid in the lung cancer group was 57.30 ng/ml as compared with that of tuberculosis group, 5.55 ng/ml (P less than 0.01). The content of CEA in the serum and pleural fluid in lung cancer group was remarkably different (P less than 0.01). CEA level in the serum of adenocarcinoma is the highest (mean 15.51 ng/ml). If we set 5 ng/ml as the margin of normal CEA level in serum, the positive rate for cancer would be 54.2%. It is suggested that the margin of CEA normal value be set at 10 ng/ml for the pleural fluid. Higher readings may imply cancer.
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PMID:[Carcinoembryonic antigen assay in serum and pleural effusion of pulmonary malignancies and benign lesions]. 358 9

The authors evaluated the usefulness of paired pleural fluid and serum lysozyme determination in the differential diagnosis of pleurisies in 118 patients. Lysozyme activity of tuberculous effusions was found significantly higher (P less than 0.001) than that of effusions due to malignancy or heart failure, but considerable overlap of the individual values was observed. All patients with tuberculous pleurisy or tuberculous empyema, as well as a group of patients with suspected tuberculous effusion, had pleural fluid to serum lysozyme ratio of 1.0 or greater. In the remaining groups, only three patients, one with malignancy, one with lupus erythematosus, and one with sarcoidosis, exceeded this value. Their results suggest that pleural fluid to serum lysozyme ratio can be applied effectively in the differential diagnosis of tuberculous pleurisy.
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PMID:Lysozyme (muramidase) in pleural effusions and serum. 713 19

This study was designed to evaluate major fibrinolytic parameters in relation to parameters of inflammation associated with different kinds of pleural effusion. Sixty patients with pleural effusion were studied. The underlying aetiology was empyema in 10 cases, tuberculosis in 9, cancer in 31, cardiac failure in 7, and undetermined in 3. Plasminogen, plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 (PAI-1) and 2 (PAI-2), tissue type plasminogen activator (t-PA), urokinase (u-PA) and D-dimers (D-D) were quantified in plasma samples and pleural effusion specimens. These data were then correlated with inflammatory or infectious parameters, i.e. fibrinogen, von Willebrand factor (vWF), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), protein concentration, and white blood cell count. D-D levels were higher in pleural fluid than in plasma. D-D levels were not correlated with either plasminogen activator or plasminogen activator inhibitor levels, suggesting the presence of other fibrinolytic pathways. PAI levels (PAI activity, PAI-1 antigenicity, PAI-2 antigenicity) and vWF levels were significantly higher in patients with tuberculosis and empyema than in patients with cancer or cardiac failure. Regression analysis between inflammatory and fibrinolytic parameters showed that pleural PAI levels were significantly correlated with pleural neutrophil count, vWF levels, and plasma fibrinogen levels. D-D levels were correlated with blood ESR. No significant difference in pleural t-PA, u-PA and D-D levels was observed between aetiologies. The highest pleural t-PA and u-PA values were noted in patients with cancer, especially lymphoma. Plasma t-PA levels were higher inpatients with pleural effusion secondary to congestive heart failure, but this difference did not reach statistical significance.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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PMID:Fibrinolytic and inflammatory processes in pleural effusions. 748 3


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