Faculty Bibliography

Delta hepatitis results from a virus that cannot cause infection by itself. But when it piggybacks with another virus - the one that causes hepatitis B - the two viruses can cause an illness more severe than that caused by hepatitis B virus alone. And hepatitis B infection can be severe. Further, delta hepatitis can often become chronic and lead to cirrhosis, another incurable liver disease. Severe outbreaks can occur anywhere hepatitis B is common, the American and Venezuelan doctors warn in the Annals of Internal Medicine, reporting on the team's investigation of an epidemic that killed 34 of 149, or almost 25 percent, of infected Yucpa Indians near Maracaibo. The epidemic left 22 Indians with chronic hepatitis. ''We were confused because we didn't know how to interpret the finding'' except to say that the antigen was somehow linked with hepatitis B, Dr. [Mario Rizzetto] said. ''We could go no further in human studies.'' From these animal studies, the researchers reported in 1980 that the delta antigen was actually a virus that would produce disease in animals only under specific conditions. Specifically, the delta virus caused illness only in the chimpanzees infected with hepatitis B. ''This was the crucial experiment, and everything else then followed,'' Dr. Rizzetto said

That weekend, Dr. Green had a visitor, Dr. Burton D. Goldberg, who specializes in examining cells and tissue through a microscope as a pathologist at New York University Medical School. After a while Dr. [Howard Green] said to his friend: ''Let's go to the lab and look at some specimens.'' ''Such cells had never grown this well before,'' Dr. Green said, ''and I realized the finding was important.'' ''We weren't prepared to do it on that scale because we did not have the trained manpower, but we agreed to try because the boys had no chance to survive otherwise,'' Dr. Green said

The new skin took several weeks to grow and ''waves of grafts'' had to be applied, Dr. Gallico said. But, he added, what eventually developed is smooth, shiny, soft, functions well and does not have the rejection problems inherent in transplanting skin to the patient from the body of another person. The doctors insisted on expressing caution in assessing the final significance of the case, since experience with more patients is needed. Nevertheless, Dr. Jack C. Fisher of the University of California at San Diego, commenting on the achievement in an editorial in the current issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, said ''the logistics of skin production as reported are truly remarkable'' and ''cannot be overstated.'' These methods, Dr. Gallico said, ''gave us the time'' to grow the [Jamie Selby] boys' skin in the laboratory and then ''give them back their own skin.''

''It is like a ticket torn in two,'' a University of Utah official said privately. ''Each of us has half a ticket and the question is who can put the other half together.'' Dr. [John A. Bosso] said that he had ''expressed the feeling'' in a recent meeting with Dr. [William C. DeVries] that ''the next time around the approval process would go rapidly'' because the board members had a clearer idea of the data they needed. ''If I were in Bill's shoes, I guess I'd have to see it to believe it,'' Dr. Bosso said. ''But there wasn't much reason to believe it would be otherwise.''

Speaking of the Australian bacterium, Dr. George Buck, a microbiologist at the University of Texas at Galveston, said, ''It definitely is a new organism.'' He also said that he believed ''it is a new genus, but it is hard to say that without definitive genetic studies, and they have not been done yet.'' Dr. Buck said his opinion was based on comparisons of samples he and the Australians have sent each other. Dr. Buck's findings add to the reports that have come from several research teams in England, the Netherlands, Scotland and West Germany confirming the existence of the spiral stomach bacterium. One American researcher, who asked not to be named, said that too many of his colleagues had the attitude that ''if we don't describe it first, our first reaction is always negative. We are very chauvinistic and have the attitude that if we haven't found something, it's probably wrong,'' he said. ''But we have been wrong in that line of thinking.'' Still another American researcher, Dr. Charles E. Pope 2d, a gastroenterologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, said that at first he had been skeptical about the Australian findings. But after a visit, he said he had ''come away thinking it was a really new and intriguing observation.'' The bacteria may not be the cause, Dr. Pope said. ''It may be that something else like drugs or alcohol starts it, and then these organisms grow there, making it worse and difficult to reverse.'' Dr. Pope urged more American doctors to carry on the research because ''there really might be something there'' and because treatment for gastritis is mostly ineffective

Fixx's case ''will be a big question-raiser'' because of the irony of his death while jogging and the debate about the health benefits of exercise, said Dr. Robert Ascheim, a cardiologist who teaches at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Centre. ''Does running benefit you? Nobody really has a clear answer,'' Dr. Ascheim said

''If he did,'' she said, ''he ignored it.'' Mr. Fixx's case ''will be a big question raiser'' because of the irony of his death while jogging and the debate about the health benefits of exercise, said Dr. Robert S. Ascheim, a cardiologist who practices at 435 East 57th Street and teaches at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. Many will be struck by the irony of the jogger dying while striving for physical fitness. But as Dr. [J. Ward Kennedy] put it, arteriosclerosis is ''a very complicated disease and practically anything can happen.'' Mr. Fixx's death is a reminder of how much more needs to be learned before heart disease can be conquered

''For patients with little or no chance to walk again, a nonsurgical treatment regimen in the nursing home is safer, more humane and far less expensive than hospitalization,'' Dr. [Leonard J. Lyon] and Dr. [Michael A. Nevins] said in the May issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. ''Surgical repair does not increase the likelihood of independent living for nursing home patients, since all of our surviving surgical patients remained institutionalized,'' the doctors said. The third group was composed of five patients for whom the two physicians recommended nonsurgical treatment but whose families insisted on the operation. The results were the same as for nonsurgical therapy, but there was a larger number of major complications. ''No one walked again'' in this group, the doctors said

''There are genetic differences in aging patterns,'' said Dr. Elizabeth Russell, of the Jackson Laboratories in Bar Harbor, Me. Dr. Darrell Salk, a genetic pathologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, has sought in these rare diseases some of the clues to aging. In a scientific article, he wrote: ''It would be surprising (to say the least) to find that aging and lifespan were coded for by a single gene, and it would also be surprising if an individual's genetic endowment had no influence on his physiologic responses to physical damage from environmental sources.'' Determining what is normal can be difficult. As Dr. [George M. Martin] noted, ''Some skin cell cultures from 80-year-olds are not much different from some who are in their 30's.''

Dr. [Steven H. Fugaro] raced upstairs to the intensive care unit and asked Mr. [Kim Wah Chan], ''Did you fly British Airways?'' Mr. Chan could not speak because he had a tube in his throat and ''he must have thought I was crazy because I yelled so,'' Dr. Fugaro said in an interview. Mr. Chan nodded, and Dr. Fugaro became excited. For the first time the diagnosis was clear. Mr. Chan had an extraordinarily severe case of salmonellosis. Today, Mr. Chan continues to fight for his life. He has had at least a dozen more operations because of complications of salmonellosis. At one point his abdomen and bowel swelled to the point where Mr. Chan's young son said: ''It's like a pumpkin about to burst.''