Faculty Bibliography

Several uncontrolled studies have suggested a beneficial effect of hyperbaric oxygen on multiple sclerosis. We studied 40 patients with advanced chronic multiple sclerosis who were randomly divided into two matching groups. The experimental group received pure oxygen, and the placebo group received a mixture of 10 per cent oxygen and 90 per cent nitrogen; both groups were treated at a pressure of 2 atmospheres absolute for 90 minutes once daily, for a total of 20 exposures. Objective improvement occurred in 12 of 17 patients treated with hyperbaric oxygen and in 1 of 20 patients treated with placebo (P less than 0.0001). Improvement was transient in seven of the patients treated with oxygen and long-lasting in five. Those with less severe forms of the disease had a more favorable and lasting response. At one year of follow-up, deterioration was noticed in 2 patients (12 per cent) in the oxygen group, neither of whom had had an initial response, and in 11 patients (55 per cent) in the placebo group, one of whom had had a positive initial response (P less than 0.0008). Minor ear problems and reversible myopia were the only side effects observed. These preliminary results suggest a positive, though transient, effect of hyperbaric oxygen on advanced multiple sclerosis, warranting further study. This therapy cannot be generally recommended without longer follow-up periods and additional confirmatory experience.

Describes a multicounter unit with buffers for storage and transmission of collected counts to the host computer. The system is highly flexible, inexpensive, and able to communicate with computers without direct memory access capability. A prototype has been built at New York University Medical Center for use with a 200-element detector array for measuring the 3-D distribution of cerebral blood flow. The multicounter will free the computer from continuous scanning of the detectors to perform on-line display and storage of collected data. An important feature of the unit is that its proper operation can be quickly verified with the aid of the host computer and detailed diagnosis obtained in case of malfunction

A new stationary 200-element ultrapure germanium (HPGe) array has been tested for accuracy and sensitivity in quantitating the distributed concentration of single-gamma-emitting radionuclides in phantoms approximating the size of the human brain. The phantoms consisted of 42 blocks of 39.1 cm3 average volume. Fourteen different permutations were studied. The concentrations in the blocks varied from 0i to 4.64 muCi/cm3. This first-generation instrument makes it possible to reconstruct the distributed concentration with a mean relative error of 8.3% at 200,000 counts per sample (1,000 counts/detector), and has sensitivities of 6,200 and 12,000 cps, respectively, for 1 muCi/cm3 of Xe-133 and Tc-99. The reconstruction algorithm is based on the conjugate gradient method of solving the set of linear equations that account for geometric, attenuation, and scatter factors. The results have implications for measuring the distribution of the partition coefficients, blood flow, blood volume, and concentration of tracers emitting single gamma photons in 42 anatomic subvolumes (30 cm3 average) of the entire brain simultaneously

Considerable effort has been expended since the early 1970s to develop new electronic assistive devices for the severely disabled. These devices have enabled the severely physically disabled individual to function with greater independence. Two of the most useful of these devices are the pneumatic (`puff' and `sip') control which when assembled onto a powered wheelchair enables the disabled user to control wheelchair movement by blowing (or sucking) into a mouth tube and the environmental control system which is an electronic scanner-switch that enables a disabled user to control, by breath or limited physical movement, an array of electrical devices or appliances