Thirty-two patients with meningeal leukaemia who achieved meningeal remission with intrathecal methotrexate (MTX) plus dexamethasone (DMT) were entered in a randomized study of two maintenance treatments: (a) I6 patients received intermittent intrathecal doses of MTX plus DMT, and (b) I6 patients received intermittent intrathecal doses of radioactive chromic phosphate (CROP). The population and clinical characteristics of the cases assigned to each maintenance regimen were similar. The duration of meningeal remission was 55-600 + d (median 550 d) for the MTX and DMT group and 56-555 d (median 360 d) for the CROP group. There was no statistical difference (P greater than 0.05) between the curves of the two groups. Intrathecal CROP seems to be as effective as intrathecal MTX plus DMT as maintenance treatment for intrathecal MTX plus DMT induced meningeal remission. Further uses of this compound should be explored but it seems to be dangerous to administer it by lumbar puncture.

Arterial hypertension has n u l t i p l e aetiologies, and i s called "essential" when none of them is discovered. There i s a congenital malformation of the c e l l u l a r architecture of the smooth muscle i n the a r t e r i a l media, that is present i n p a t i d s t h a t develop systemic and/or pulmonary hypertension i n several combinations of severity. Post-mortem findings i n 37 such pa

Improved handling of the uremic haemolytic syndrome in renal failure brings forth the need to understand the extrarenal lesions (ERL). Few publications refer to them. Clinical data and autopsy material of 61 children dead with the uremic haemolytic syndrome (UHS) and less of 2 months of evolution were reviewed. 35 of them had ERL due to UHS with microthrombosis (MT). They were more frequent in those dying in the first 10 days of the acute stage: 27/34. Three of the 8 patients that had ERL after 10 days had repeated bouts of haemolisis and intravascular coagulation. Organs more frequently affected were: colon: 22 patients with MT, and also widespread necrosis in most of them; heart: 12 with MT and 5 of them with myocardial necrosis; brain: of 27 brains examined 9 had MT (mainly in the choroid plexuses), the others had edema, haemorrages, and spongiosis. Other organs with Mt were adrenals, pancreas, small bowel, etc. We conclude that IBIS is a generalized disease, and that ERL are frequent and important in the acute stage. They are responsable for many of the severe acute clinical signs, and they are also the inmediate cause of death in many patients or of severe sequelae in others.

Arterial hypertension has n u l t i p l e aetiologies, and i s called "essential" when none of them is discovered. There i s a congenital malformation of the c e l l u l a r architecture of the smooth muscle i n the a r t e r i a l media, that is present i n p a t i d s t h a t develop systemic and/or pulmonary hypertension i n several combinations of severity. Post-mortem findings i n 37 such pa