Success In Clinical Practice Research Articles

NMR and MRI in retrospect

The success in clinical practice of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a result of the symbiosis of the science of NMR with the computer and the availability of appropriate magnetic fields. A brief survey with some history is presented of NMR phenomena which are basic to the interpretation of MRI signals. Special exotic effects or procedures, such as stochastic NMR and line narrowing techniques of high-resolution NMR spectroscopy have a potential to play a role in future MRI systems.

Management of Common Chronic Pain Problems in the Hand

The purpose of this article is to discuss the management of chronic painful conditions associated with upper extremity disorders. These conditions result from trauma of either neural or non-neural origin as well as from trauma originating from a specific disease process. The published information on pain is very broad and immense and cannot be covered in its entirety in this article. The specific focus of this article will be on description of problems commonly seen by physical therapists treating patients with upper extremity disorders. Clinical management of these conditions will be discussed based on both research evidence and success in clinical practice.

The effect of dibromo-dulcitol, diepoxy-dulcitol and various new cytostatic hexitol derivatives on the metabolic activities of nucleic acids and proteins—II

The effects of nine antiblastic, 1,6-disubstituted hexitol derivatives were compared on DNA, RNA and protein synthesis. Each compound reduced 14C-thymidine incorporation into the DNA in surviving rabbit bone marrow cell culture, in vitro. The rate of inhibition increased as a function of incubation time with the compounds and of their concentration. Among the hexitol skeletons carrying identical substituents dulcitol (galactitol) proved to be the most effective, D-mannitol was less and D-sorbitol the least effective. Comparing the reactive functional groups carried by identical hexitol skeletons, the dianhydride (diepoxide) derivatives were the most effective, dibromo derivatives were less and dimethanesulphonyloxy (dimesyl) derivatives the least effective. The inhibition of DNA synthesis by diiodo- D-sorbitol was anomalously strong. At higher concentrations the hexitols reduced precursor incorporation into RNA and protein of human tonsillar cells, in vitro. At relatively low concentration and short incubation times, however, enhancement could be observed. A good correlation was established between the rate of inhibition of DNA synthesis and the cytotoxic effect. Since the dianhydride derivative of hexitol was always more effective than its corresponding dibromo-or dimethane-sulphonyloxy derivative, the anhydrides may have formed from the latter in vivo and these are probably responsible for a large portion of the cytotoxic effect. The various hexitols, especially, dibromodulcitol and dianhydro-dulcitol, used with success in clinical practice have different properties in vivo (transport, transformation, target). In addition to DNA, the nuclear proteins may also be an important target site.