Faculty Bibliography

Surgeons in Louisville, Ky., performed the first hand transplant in the United States on Sunday, replacing the left hand of a New Jersey man with one taken from an unidentified donor who had died a few hours earlier. Scott's hand transplant is the third ever performed and the second within five months. Clint Hallam, 48, of Australia is progressing well after receiving a hand and forearm transplant in Lyon, France, last September

[Nkem Chukwu], 27, has visited regularly since her discharge from the hospital on Dec. 30. When she can hold one of the infants, she sits in a chair, unbuttons her blouse and touches the baby against her chest. She does not try to nurse them; the babies cannot yet suck and swallow well enough. It takes about 20 minutes for the nurses, who must keep the tubes and wires connected, to get a baby into her arms. The father, Iyke Louis Udobi, a respiratory therapist, also visits and touches the infants. The parents, American citizens born in Nigeria, gave the babies Nigerian names based on the characteristics of God. Many of the octuplets' problems, like immature lungs, a perforated intestine and the heart vessel condition, are those faced by any premature infant. Some problems were compounded by their numbers: multiple fetuses create a crowded womb, which increases the risk of growth retardation. Multiple fetuses also increase the likelihood that the babies will be born prematurely

At Babe Ruth Day at Yankee Stadium in 1947, the baseball hero of the generation stood before an admiring crowd, deep in pain and emaciated from advancing cancer, not yet aware of what ailed him. Last year, the world marked the 50th anniversary of Ruth's death. His sports legacy was extolled again as baseball heroes of newer generations breezed past the home-run record the Babe held for 34 years, until 1961. But the images of a hoarse Ruth, perpetuated in audio and videotapes on the Internet, in movies and in sports broadcasts, in addition to his well-known smoking and drinking proclivities, have contributed to the myth that Ruth had throat cancer, which is generally taken to mean cancer of the larynx, or voice box

Then the clues come from following the tubes that blow air into the baby's tiny nostrils. Another tube carries nutrients into a vein. The boy has black hair. He is barely a foot long. He is curled up on a pillow and strapped in a cloth bumper to keep his arms and legs in the same flexed position they were in in the womb. As he sleeps beneath a radiant warmer in the dark and quiet room, machines track his skin temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen level and other vital measurements. Two Beanie Babies lie nearby. One toy serves an extra function: the Beanie's weight holds the air tubes in place. Above, a cardboard sign identifies him as Baby F, or Ikem. At 1 pound 7 ounces, he is the smallest of the seven surviving octuplets born here last month. On Friday night, when Ikem developed signs of an infection, doctors began administering antibiotics and stopped his feeding. When the infection subsides, in two to three days, feeding will resume. The first of the eight babies, Ebuka, a girl, was born on Dec. 8, nearly four months earlier than the mother's due date of April 1. The mother, Nkem Chukwu, had been treated at the MacGregor Fertility Clinic in Houston and rejected the idea of killing any of the fetuses to give the others a greater chance of survival. The seven others were born on Dec. 20, making them the world's first set of octuplets to be born alive. The largest weighed less than 2 pounds. The smallest, a girl named Odera, weighed 10.3 ounces and died on Dec. 26

Then the clues come from following the tubes that blow air into the baby's tiny nostrils. Another tube carries nutrients into a vein. The boy has a crop of black hair. He is barely a foot long. He is curled up on a soft pillow and strapped in a cloth bumper, dotted with hearts, to keep his arms and legs in the same flexed position they were in in the womb. As he sleeps beneath a radiant warmer in the dark and quiet room, machines track his skin temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen level and other vital measurements. Two Beanie Babies lie nearby. One toy serves an extra function: the Beanie's weight holds the air tubes in place. The first of the eight babies, Ebuka, a girl, was born on Dec. 8, nearly four months earlier than the mother's due date of April 1. The mother, Nkem Chukwu had been treated at the MacGregor Fertility Clinic in Houston and because of religious beliefs had rejected the idea of destroying any of the fetuses to give the others a greater chance of survival. The seven others were born on Dec. 20, making them the world's first set of octuplets to be born alive. The largest weighed less than 2 pounds. The smallest, a girl named Odera, weighed 10.3 ounces and died on Dec. 26. The babies have a 95 percent chance of surviving to their expected discharge in late March, said Dr. Leonard E. Weisman, the head of the neonatal unit. As he led a visiting doctor through the unit, Dr. Weisman said he was ''cautiously optimistic'' that the babies, all listed in critical condition, would turn out normal

Then he is found by following the tubes that blow air into his tiny nostrils. Another tube carries nutrients into a vein. The boy has black hair. He is barely a foot long. He is curled up on a pillow and strapped in a cloth bumper, dotted with hearts, to keep his arms and legs in the same flexed position they were in in the womb. As he sleeps beneath a radiant warmer in the dark and quiet room, machines track his skin temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen level and other vital measurements. Two Beanie Babies lie nearby. One toy serves a function: Its weight holds the air tubes in place. Above, a cardboard sign identifies him as Baby F, or Ikem. At 1 pound, 7 ounces, he is the smallest of the seven surviving octuplets born here last month. On Friday night, when Ikem developed signs of an infection, doctors began administering antibiotics and stopped his feeding. When the infection subsides, in two to three days, feeding will resume. The first of the eight babies, Ebuka, a girl, was born Dec. 8, almost four months before the mother's due date of April 1. The mother, Nkem Chukwu, had been treated at the MacGregor Fertility Clinic in Houston, and because of religious beliefs, had rejected the idea of destroying any of the fetuses to give the others a greater chance of survival. The seven others were born Dec. 20, making them the world's first set of octuplets to be born alive. The largest weighed less than 2 pounds. The smallest, a girl named Odera, weighed 10.3 ounces and died Dec. 26

The births made the octuplets an immediate sensation in the news and renewed the debate about fertility drugs and their enormous medical and human costs, but here in the neonatal intensive care unit on the fourth floor of Texas Children's Hospital, the glare of world attention fades away next to the blip of the infant monitors. Now, although two babies remain under a pound and a half, all are gaining weight, ounce by ounce. The babies have a 95 percent chance of surviving to their expected discharge in late March, said Dr. Leonard Weisman, the head of the neonatal unit. As he led a visiting doctor through the unit, Weisman said he was 'cautiously optimistic' that the babies, all listed in critical condition, would turn out normal. Initially, all the babies breathed with the aid of mechanical ventilators. Now the surviving octuplets breathe on their own. A pump blows air through the tubing to help keep their chest walls from collapsing. The babies also receive caffeine to prevent apnea and stimulate their breathing

The boy has black hair. He is barely a foot long. He is curled up on a pillow and strapped in a cloth bumper dotted with hearts, to keep his arms and legs in the same flexed position they were in in the womb. As he sleeps beneath a radiant warmer in the dark and quiet room, machines track his skin temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen level and other vital measurements. Two Beanie Babies lie nearby. One toy serves an extra function: the Beanie's weight holds the air tubes in place. Above, a cardboard sign identifies him as Baby F, or Ikem. At 1 pound, 7 ounces, he is the smallest of the seven surviving octuplets born here last month. The strongest and largest, at 2 pounds 10 ounces, is his only brother, Jioke. He rests in a similar warmer in the same room. The first of the eight babies, Ebuka, a girl, was born on Dec. 8, almost four months earlier than the mother's due date of April 1. The mother, Nkem Chukwu, had been treated at the MacGregor Fertility Clinic in Houston and, because of religious beliefs, had rejected the idea of destroying any of the fetuses to give the others a greater chance of survival. The seven others were born on Dec. 20, making them the world's first set of octuplets to be born alive. The largest weighed less than 2 pounds. The smallest, a girl named Odera, weighed 10.3 ounces and died on Dec. 26

Then the clues come from following the tubes that blow air into the baby's tiny nostrils. Another tube carries nutrients into a vein. The boy has black hair. He is barely a foot long. He is curled up on a pillow and strapped in a cloth bumper, dotted with hearts, to keep his arms and legs in the same flexed position they were in the womb. As he sleeps beneath a radiant warmer in the dark, quiet room, machines track his skin temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen level and other vital measurements. Two Beanie Babies lie nearby. One toy serves an extra function: The Beanie's weight holds the air tubes in place. Above, a cardboard sign identifies him as Baby F, or Ikem. At 1 pound 7 ounces, he is the smallest of the seven surviving octuplets born last month in Houston. On Friday night, when Ikem developed signs of an infection, doctors began administering antibiotics and stopped his feeding. When the infection subsides, in two to three days, feeding will resume. The births made the octuplets an immediate media sensation and renewed the debate about fertility drugs and their enormous medical and human costs, but in the neonatal intensive care unit on the fourth floor of Texas Children's Hospital, the glare of world attention fades away next to the blip of the infant monitors. Now, although two babies still weigh less than a pound and a half, all are gaining weight, ounce by ounce

Dr. (Selim) Aractingi's team at the Tenon Hospital may have solved a mystery of why many women itch from a rash in the last weeks of pregnancy. The rash apparently is caused by fetal cells that escape from the mother's womb and lodge in the skin, Dr. Aractingi's team reported on Dec. 12 in Lancet, a journal published in London. It is the newest evidence of chimerism's role in human disorders. Last year, Dr. J. Lee Nelson and her colleagues at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle reported the first evidence linking cells that escaped from a fetus into the mother's bloodstream to development of a disease in the mother years after pregnancy. The disease, known as scleroderma, affects the skin and other organs. It is an autoimmune disorder in which the body mysteriously attacks its own healthy tissues. The condition strikes women four times as often as men. And in 1992, Dr. Thomas E. Starzl's team at the University of Pittsburgh showed that, in patients with transplanted organs, cells that escaped from donor tissue migrated to the skin and persisted up to 29 years after transplantation. The traffic is two way: The patient's own cells migrate to the transplanted organs where they continue to exist with donors cells. At the same time, donor cells move into the recipient's tissues