BACKGROUND Free fat graft has been used for the treatment of congenital hand differences. However, there have been a few reports about the outcome of that treatment. In this study, the outcome of free fat grafts for congenital hand and foot differences was investigated. METHODS Fourteen bones with longitudinal epiphyseal bracket, 3 wrists with Madelung deformity, and 5 cases of osseous syndac...

BACKGROUND The working environment of stone miners has been believed to cause their susceptibility to respiratory diseases. Silicosis is an occupational disease caused by exposure to crystalline silica dust which is marked by inflammation and scarring in the lung. The immune system boosted after the silica invasion led to self-damage and lay the foundation of silicosis pathogenesis. Silicosis c...

P RESSURE patterns from the right auricle and ventricle in constrictive pericarditis were first described in 1946 by Bloomfield and associates' and recently by Hansen and associates2 and McKusick.3 The right auricular pressure curve consists of (a) an M or W shaped pattern with two upward and two downward deflections, (b) moderately or markedly elevated mean pressure and (c) failure of the down...

OBJECTIVE Constrictive pericarditis is a disease characterized by marked thickening of the pericardium which causes restriction of diastolic cardiac function. The purpose of this report is to review the outcome of pericardiectomy for constrictive pericarditis and to discuss its problems. METHODS Sixteen consecutive patients who underwent pericardiectomy for constrictive pericarditis in our in...

OBJECTIVE To identify features which predict the subsequent development of constrictive pericarditis from acute or subacute tuberculous (TB) pericarditis. SETTING Tertiary referral centre, chest hospital. PATIENTS The records of 16 consecutive patients in whom acute or subacute TB pericarditis was diagnosed between 1988 and 1990 at a chest hospital were reviewed. These records included a fo...

The maximal rate of fall of left ventricular pressure (peak negative dp/dt) was measured in 4 patients with congestive cardiomyopathy (primary myocardial disease), in 5 patients with constrictive pericarditis and in 3 controls. Measurements were made at rest, with leg raising, after a bolus of 6 mug intravenous isoprenaline, and in patients with constrictive pericarditis during pulsus paradoxus...

To elucidate the contribution of the extracellular microfibril-elastic fiber network to vertebrate organogenesis, we generated fibrillin 2 (Fbn2)-null mice by gene targeting and identified a limb-patterning defect in the form of bilateral syndactyly. Digit fusion involves both soft and hard tissues, and is associated with reduced apoptosis at affected sites. Two lines of evidence suggest that s...

Acquisition of new cis-regulatory elements (CREs) can cause alteration of developmental gene regulation and may introduce morphological novelty in evolution. Although structural variation in the genome generated by chromosomal rearrangement is one possible source of new CREs, only a few examples are known, except for cases of retrotransposition. In this study, we show the acquisition of novel r...