Sixty-seven patients were examined with a small portable echocardiograph in Wad Medani Teaching Hospital in central Sudan. The cardiac alterations detected in the referred patients, namely valvular disease and pericardial effusion, suggested a high prevalence of inflammatory heart disease in this area. Other findings were dilatative cardiomyopathy, congenital heart disease, mitral valve prolapse and a cardiac mass. Echocardiographic examination of patients with advanced hepatosplenic schistosomiasis revealed no evidence of cardiac alterations or abnormal right heart function. For echocardiography a general purpose ultrasound scanner, as defined by the World Health Organization, was used, additionally equipped with M mode facilities. It was concluded that echocardiography is applicable even in remote tropical areas and that its value, considering costs, therapeutic consequences and clinical benefit in developing countries, can be substantial. It was particularly helpful with pericardial disease.

Renal function was investigated in 218 school children with Schistosoma mansoni infection in the Providence of Gezira in central Sudan and in 65 Sudanese and 65 German age-matched controls. Serum creatinine was normal in all children. A pathological urinary protein-creatinine ratio was found in 3% of S. mansoni-infected children and in 5% of Sudanese controls but in none of the European children. Characterization of pathological proteinuria using albumin nephelometry, alpha-1 microglobulin immunodiffusion and SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis in these children showed glomerular, tubular or mixed glomerulotubular patterns. One, 4 and 6 months following treatment of schistosomiasis with praziquantel, stools were re-examined; 57% of patients were cured, 16% were found to be reinfected and 27% had persistent egg excretion. Six months after therapy, pathological urinary protein-creatinine ratios were encountered in 3% of S. mansoni patients and in none of the 34 reinvestigated controls. Proteinuria was similar in patients with persistent S. mansoni egg excretion and in children cured of schistosomiasis infection. It is concluded that there was no evidence for S. mansoni associated glomerulonephritis in this group of Sudanese children. The high rate of pathological proteinuria in S. mansoni-infected and non-infected Sudanese children may be due to other causes.

Sonographic measurements of the volume of blood collecting in hematometrocolpos has been carried out in 6 cases of imperforate hymen. Sonometry gave estimates of the amount of retained blood, which were 4% to 28% more than that actually evacuated. The vaginal collection was 5 times or more than the uterine collection. Ultrasound gives characteristic diagnostic features, and the quantitative capabilities may provide information on volume and on the natural history of this condition.

G AMMA rays effect, on different dose levels on the production of ajmalicine as well as 5-phosphomevalonate kinase enzyme activety, was studied in Catharanthus roseus cell suspension cultures. The seedlings were taken from the young leaf puds and grown on MS solid medium for 7 weeks. Calli individual serially sub cultured by transfing to maintenance medium consisting of Gamborg's B5 medium. Cell suspensions were exposed to gamma rays after 4 weeks at dose levels of 1,