No abstract

Survey of Infantile Gastroenteritis-Ironside et al. MBRDICALmJOURNAL deaths occurred immediately after admission, the fourth was from a non-infective cause, and the fifth followed prolonged. non-specific gastroenteritis. So it is suggested that antibiotics are of real value in treating associated infection but play little part in the severe case or in the control or spread of infection.Even in the developed countries gastroenteritis is still one of the commonest diseases of infancy, with a hospital mortality rate of over 1%. It is therefore remarkable that the aetiology is unknown in most cases, that the chemical pathology of the disease is still imperfectly understood, and that there is little agreement on the optimum treatment.We wish to thank Dr. S British Medical Journal, 1970, 3, 24-26 Summary: A case is reported in which severe thrombocytopenia occurred during administration and readministration of rifampicin. The patient's erythrocytes gave a positive direct antiglobulin test due to complement on the red cell surface; in the serum, complement-fixing antibodies were detected which were directed against the drug.Immunological studies showed antibodies, of both IgG and IgM type, capable of fixing complement to both normal and the patient's platelets, but only in the presence of rifampicin. In addition the IgM type of antibody (but not the IgG) was capable of fixing complement to normal red celis; again only in the presence of the drug.

Summary Daily rifampicin in a single dose of 600 mg, combined with other drugs, usually streptomycin and isoniazid, was given to forty-nine patients for 3 months. It was planned to continue for another 15 months with twice-weekly rifampicin 1200 mg plus isoniazid 900 mg, but the high incidence of side effects led to cessation of the intermittent regimen when only two patients had completed 18 months. Though there was no serious problem with daily treatment, eleven patients (22%) were unable to continue rifampicin on the intermittent regimen. In eight (16%) a pyrexial syndrome occurred. In one of these patients there was also temporary renal failure and in another, precipitous thrombocytopenia led to epistaxis and bleeding into the tongue and lips. Symptomless thrombocytopenia developed in two other patients, making three cases (6%) of thrombocytopenia in all. In sixteen (33%) of the forty-nine patients antibodies to rifampicin were detected in the blood. Side-effects occurred in nine (56%) of these, including the three developing thrombocytopenia, but in only two (6%) of the thirty-three patients with no antibodies detected. This association of toxic reactions with antibodies is highly significant (P < 0·001).

No abstract

The potential value of indium-labelled bleomycin as a diagnostic scanning agent has been investigated in patients with a variety of malignant neoplasms involving the thorax, abdomen or pelvis. Sixty-five patients were scanned on 72 occasions, the optimum time to perform the examination being 72 hours after the intravenous injection of 2 mCi 111-In chelated to 2 mg bleomycin. Tumour uptake was visualized in 53 out of 62 scans in which tumour was present, but the extent of tumour was underestimated in seven cases, and over-estimated in five others. The latter were mostly due to uptake in infective lesions. These results indicate that the situations in which indium bleomycin is most likely to provide clinically relevant information are the distinction between recurrent tumour and post-radiotherapy changes in the thorax and pelvis, the diagnosis of recurrent carcinoma within the pelvis, and the distinction between bony metastases from carcinoma of the prostate and Paget's disease. Further clinical trials are necessary to assess these situations.