Faculty Bibliography

Last year, a woman broke her hip in a storm between Hawaii and the mainland. ''A really wide lady came down the steps trying to find a seat in the darkened show lounge when the ship lurched and she fell, landing between a railing and a wall,'' Dr. [Gary Razon] said. Summoned to the scene, Dr. Razon found that ''she was literally wedged in, screaming in pain.'' The show stopped. In a test of the crew's agility and ingenuity, Dr. Razon supervised the eight stewards it took to dislodge the woman and carry her to the infirmary. Dr. Razon said he ''was so scared because the ship was bouncing and feared she might be bleeding from the hip fracture.'' Dr. Razon could not reach the nephews. From other calls, he learned that the passenger's mother also was also demented. Her nurse provided the name of the woman's psychiatrist, who was skiing. Dr. Razon could not reach the covering physician and sent the woman to a hospital after the ship docked in Nassau

For now, the Mayo researchers hypothesize that shock wave therapy for kidney stones increases the risk for diabetes by damaging the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, a gland through which the shock waves may pass. They also theorize that shock waves may increase the risk for hypertension by scarring the kidneys and affecting their secretion of hormones, like renin, that can influence blood pressure. Her team did not want to release the findings early because the Mayo Clinic is one of a very few medical centers that still uses the same model lithotripter, Dornier HM3, in use in 1985, she said. Over the years, manufacturers have developed newer model machines that narrow the range of shock waves but that break up fewer stones. Because most urologists use the newer models, Dr. [Amy Krambeck] said, ''we can't say that every lithotripter causes'' the diabetes and hypertension complications. Mayo urologists discuss all alternatives for treating kidney stones with patients but use lithotripsy less than other procedures, Dr. Krambeck said. After learning the results of their study, the doctors began informing patients who were considering lithotripsy about ''correlations with possible side effects'' but without specifying which ones or the data, she said. Now they will provide that information

Cats, tigers and leopards are known to have been infected with the virus in Asia and Europe. An author of the article, Dr. Albert Osterhaus, a virologist and veterinarian at Erasmus Medical Center, has performed experiments showing that cats can give the virus to other cats. But whether they do so in real life, and if so how often, is unknown. Among the many unknowns is how long cats can excrete the virus, the minimal amount of virus it takes to cause infection and whether cats can excrete the virus without developing signs of illness. Dogs, foxes, seals and other carnivores may be vulnerable to the H5N1 virus, Osterhaus said. Tests in Thailand have shown the virus has infected dogs without causing apparent symptoms

Cats, tigers and leopards are known to have been infected with the virus in Asia and Europe. An author of the article, Albert Osterhaus, a virologist and veterinarian at Erasmus Medical Center, has performed experiments showing that cats can give the virus to other cats. But whether they do so in real life, and if so how often, is unknown. Dick Thompson, spokesman for the World Health Organization, said Wednesday that it agreed that more work was needed to determine the role of cats and other carnivores in the epidemiology of avian influenza. Epidemiologists have found no change in the way the virus is spreading or causing illness, Thompson said. But he added, 'Obviously, there still are major gaps in our knowledge and risk assessment.'

Cats, tigers and leopards are known to have been infected with the virus in Asia and Europe. An author of the article, Dr. Albert Osterhaus, a virologist and veterinarian at Erasmus Medical Center, has performed experiments showing that cats can give the virus to other cats. But whether they do so in real life, and if so how often, is unknown. The team has found that cats can be infected through the respiratory tract. Cats can also be infected when they ingest the virus, which is a novel route for influenza transmission in mammals. But cats excrete only one-thousandth the amount of virus that chickens do, or less, he said. Among the many unknowns is how long cats can excrete the virus, the minimal amount of virus it takes to cause infection and whether cats can excrete the virus without developing signs of illness

It takes about two months to grow the new bladder on a scaffold outside the body. After implantation, the engineered bladder enlarges over time in the recipient. The researchers say they expect that the new bladder will last a patient's lifetime, but the longevity will be known only as the children grow older. A major advantage of his technique is that rejection cannot occur because the cells used to create a new bladder are from the patient, not from another individual. So an ultimate aim -- still years off -- is to develop the technique to grow a wide variety of other tissues, possibly even organs, to help relieve the shortage of donor organs available for transplanting, said the research team's leader, Dr. Anthony Atala. He directs the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C. After the new bladder formed, in about seven to eight weeks, Dr. Atala removed a large portion of the patient's bladder. Then he sewed the newly created tissue to what is known as the neck of the bladder and to the rest of the remaining portion of the patient's natural bladder

Many health officials have predicted major increases in H.I.V. in India, which has the world's second highest number of infected people, after South Africa. But new infections among young adults declined by more than a third from 2000 through 2004, according to a statistical study by Dr. Rajesh Kumar and a team of researchers reported in the journal Lancet. A second is that routine monitoring of H.I.V. and other sexually transmitted diseases are powerful and cost-effective ways to control AIDS in India. But experts urged constant vigilance for signs of a reversal of the favorable trend. The prevalence of H.I.V. among women aged 15 to 24 in the southern states fell to 1.1 percent from 1.7 percent during the period of study. But H.I.V. prevalence did not fall significantly among women aged 25 to 34

The dilemma often concerns the influenza virus because it continually mutates, leading to human pandemics that predictably occur unpredictably. Although scientists lack the knowledge to predict when and what strain will cause the next influenza pandemic, they say they are convinced that another one is inevitable and so preparation must start as soon as a threat is detected. That kind of immediate action occurred in 1976 after four cases of swine influenza were detected at Fort Dix, a military base in New Jersey. Fearing that the cases represented an early warning of an impending pandemic of influenza, Public Health Service officials rushed President Gerald R. Ford, who was running for re-election, into recommending a swine influenza shot for every American. Warnings about A(H5N1) avian influenza began in 1997, when scientists in Hong Kong discovered that that strain of virus had jumped directly to cause disease in humans without first mixing in pigs, which had been the pattern until then. With the spread of the virus among birds, officials have warned that it could mutate, combine with a human influenza virus and create a new one to cause a human pandemic

The diseases are known as zoonoses because they affect animals primarily, and humans only incidentally. The AIDS, SARS and A(H5N1) avian influenza viruses and at least eight other infectious agents carried by animals have led to new and emerging human diseases in recent years. In 1999, scientists discovered the Nipah virus among pig workers in Malaysia and Singapore who developed inflammation of the brain and respiratory illness. Farming practices on pig farms where fruit trees were abundant created opportunities for transmission of the Nipah virus, said Dr. Peter W. Daniels of the Australian Animal Health Laboratory in Geelong. Cats, leopards and tigers have died from A(H5N1) avian influenza in southeast Asia and Europe. Though the number of cases is small, they have raised concern that the virus could become a bigger problem among felines. The 10,000 tigers now being kept as pets in the United States outnumber the 6,000 in the wild worldwide, Dr. [Bruno Chomel] said

The bacteria can cause the same variety of problems in animals and humans, including skin infections, abscesses, joint infections and death. The infections can be difficult to treat, raising concern about the potential for animals to serve as sources of infection among their human contacts. Are some people acquiring the antibiotic-resistant staphylococcal infections from pets? Or are pets being infected from exposure to people? If so, how often are each occurring? Methicillin-resistant staphylococcal infections have been found among horses, and outbreaks have occurred in equine hospitals. But no cases of infection among horses have been linked to people, [Nina Morano] said in an interview