Faculty Bibliography

On Friday, a committee that evaluates the ethics of human experiments at the university gave permission to a team headed by a liver-transplant pioneer, Dr. Thomas Starzl, to perform up to four permanent baboon-liver transplants in humans. A baboon was chosen for the cross-species transplant because its liver is anatomically similar to the human organ. The baboon's liver was less than half the size of the patient's shrunken liver. In the last animal-to-human transplant, an infant known as Baby Fae died 20 days after receiving a baboon's heart at Loma Linda Medical Centre in California in 1984. Baby Fae received cyclosporine, a standard anti-rejection drug that was not included in the combination of drugs being given to the man who received the baboon liver yesterday, and a steroid drug

British researchers reported in a medical journal article on Jun 27, 1992 that injections of magnesium at the time of a heart attack reduced deaths by a fourth in a study of more than 2,300 patients. The researchers said that magnesium therapy was simple and safe, and they urged that it be added to the array of treatments for heart attack patients

Magnesium's effectiveness in the study was about equal to the highly beneficial results found in other recent studies from aspirin and drugs that dissolve blood clots that produce heart attacks. Such clot-dissolving drugs include streptokinase and TPA. The researchers said magnesium therapy was simple and safe, and they urged that it be added to the array of pharmacological weapons that doctors use for patients with suspected heart attacks

Although the FDA on Jun 19, 1992 approved for marketing Proscar, a Merck & Co drug to treat symptoms of enlarged prostate glands, the full range of the drug's adverse side effects has not been assessed. The development of the drug and some of its possible side effects are examined

Any caution for the laparoscopic gallbladder operation among surgeons has been offset by surging patient demand of a magnitude rarely seen in medical history. The prospect of less pain and a return to work several weeks earlier leads most people facing gallbladder surgery to choose the new procedure over the traditional one. And not surprisingly, the laparoscopic procedure is rapidly replacing the older operation among the 500,000 Americans who have gallbladder surgery each year. In a break from the usual collegiality in surgical teaching, some surgeons who performed it initially charged other surgeons $500 to watch them do one procedure. Responsible surgeons then practiced on animals and moved on to patients by assisting colleagues already skilled in the procedure. But some surgeons began doing the procedure on their own with little further training. Many surgeons insist that the new gallbladder technique is safest when carried out by two surgeons. For example, Dr. Mohan C. Airan, associate head of surgery at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Chicago, said no major injuries to the common bile duct occurred among more than 1,000 cases in Chicago hospitals that adhered to strict criteria, including the presence of two surgeons

Federal health officials said on Jun 18, 1992 that they would not be able to meet a Jul 1 deadline for changing the definition of AIDS, a decision that will affect eligibility for social benefits and the effort to track the AIDS epidemic

The CDC has decided to let state or local health departments decide, on a person-by-person basis, the care that can be given by HIV-positive health-care workers. The CDC said it will not rescind guidelines it drew up on procedures that infected health-care workers can perform, but it did acknowledge that it does not expect the guidelines to have any practical effect

Since August 1990, at least seven patients have died and 185 others have suffered serious or life-threatening complications from the procedure, laparoscopic gallbladder surgery, at 99 of the state's 242 hospitals, the state Health Department said. Complications are currently being reported to the department at the rate of three or four each week. In most hospitals in the United States, laparoscopy (pronounced lap-a-RAH-ska-pee) is rapidly replacing the traditional operation among the 500,000 Americans who undergo gallbladder surgery each year. Laparoscopic gallbladder surgery is regarded as a major medical advance because, when done properly, it is less painful and easier for the patient. The gallbladder, a pear-shaped sac about four inches long, stores bile that is made in the liver. Stones can form in the gallbladder, causing severe inflammation or acute attacks that may require the sac's removal

A new surgical technique to remove the gallbladder has led to several deaths and numerous injuries from surgeons who have not been properly trained. To reduce the hazards, the HHS on Jun 12, 1992 issued new guidelines that require surgeons to perform 15 laparoscopies under supervision before a hospital may permit them to perform the operation independently

The International AIDS Center at Harvard University said on Jun 3, 1992 that 40 million to 110 million people worldwide could be infected with the AIDS virus by the year 2000, adding that international efforts to halt the spread of the fatal disease have stalled. The group's outlook is much more grim than that of the World Health Organization, which put the estimate at 40 million at most