in order to evaluate the microvascular anatomy and the interconnections, 101 fixed brains from human cadavers with a mean age of 41.3 years were subjected to objective scrutiny. symmetry was visualized with an unaided eye and measurements made under microscopic magnification technique using a micrometer. classic symmetry was observed in only 19 of the specimens, whereas the rest of the 82 speci...

colleagues [1] share their view on the value of autopsy in the intensive care unit (ICU). Th ey are disappointed by the declining frequency of routine autopsy in the ICU. Th e arguments in favor are repeated and the arguments against are refuted as before. We will not do that again. Despite this understandable reasoning, it is a fact of life that the autopsy rate is declining. Are we missing th...

the previous issue of Critical Care, we read with interest the reaction of Girbes and Zijlstra [1] to our article on the role of autopsy in critically ill patients [2]. Th e authors believe that the declining autopsy rate is acceptable since current medicine is based on guidelines. However, guidelines can be driven by fi ndings in large series of autopsies. Candida pneumonia occurs rarely in pa...

July 2006 | Volume 3 | Issue 7 | e234 Patients and their families can be our greatest teachers. Such was the case with the initiation of the Warm Autopsy Program at the Dorothy P. & Richard P. Simmons Center for Interstitial Lung Disease at the University of Pittsburgh. This brief essay describes events that led to our beginning the program, which we believe uniquely benefi ts researchers whose...

Six glycosidases were determined in: (1) lenses of alloxan-diabetic rats; (2) rabbit lenses incubated in high-glucose media in vitro; and (3) human senile cataracts, diabetic senile cataracts, and autopsy lenses. In diabetic rat lenses, the activities of /3-glucosaminidase, fi-galactosidase, and P-fucosidase increased with cataract progression as compared to control lenses. Glycosidase activiti...

BACKGROUND Central nervous system fungal infections (FI) are important complications and a cause of mortality in patients who receive hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). AIMS To study the clinical aspects of fungal encephalitis (FE). SETTINGS AND DESIGN The study was carried out at the HSCT Center of the Hospital de Clínicas, Federal University of Paraná, Curitiba, Brazil. MAT...

The decline in autopsy rates in the past four decades in developed countries (to less than 5% in the USA) has paralleled continued discrepancies between clinical and autopsy diagnoses of up to 20–30%. The interconnected causes of low autopsy rates include absence of predictable funding, clinical overconfi dence in diagnostic modalities, reluctance to request and undertake autopsies, decreased e...

Dear Editor, Multiple myeloma (MM) presenting as nodular liver masses is rare in clinical practice and the literature published thus far has been limited to few reports and case series.1-9 In a retrospective review of more than 2000 patients, Talamo et al10 reported that only 9 cases where there was nodular involvement of the liver by MM, whereas in one autopsy study, nodular liver involvement ...

This study aims to investigate the potential of nanoparticle retention of ultrafi ltration (UF) multichannel hollow fiber membrane. Filtration experiments of fl uorescent silica nanoparticles (NPs) (10 and 100 nm) and CdTe quantum dots (1.5 nm) suspensions were carried out under diff erent operating conditions to analyze the retention rate (RT), the fouling zone and the...

We immunocytochemically identified microglia in fronto-insular (FI) and visual cortex (VC) in autopsy brains of well-phenotyped subjects with autism and matched controls, and stereologically quantified the microglial densities. Densities were determined blind to phenotype using an optical fractionator probe. In FI, individuals with autism had significantly more microglia compared to controls (p...