Morphine and narcotic agonist-antagonists have been used to assist ICU patients in adapting to mechanical ventilation. In this study, 10 mg of morphine and the equipotent doses of synthetic analgesics, 2 mg of butorphanol, 0.6 mg of buprenorphine or 30 mg of pentazocine were administered intravenously to 29 patients requiring a ventilator. Hemodynamic effects on the heart rate, mean arterial pressure (MAP), cardiac index, stroke index, left ventricular stroke work index, mean pulmonary arterial pressure (MPAP), pulmonary capillary wedge pressure (PCWP) and systemic and pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) were measured. The hemodynamic effects of the four drugs were mild and not statistically significant except for the reduction in PCWP and the increase in PVR after morphine and the increase in MAP and MPAP after pentazocine administration. These doses of the four drugs could be given safely even in critically ill patients. The hemodynamic effects of these analgesics showed a similarity between the administration of butorphanol and morphine, and between buprenorphine and pentazocine. This study demonstrates that morphine and butorphanol are preferred to the cases with hypertension, increased pulmonary arterial pressure or wedge pressure and that pentazocine and buprenorphine are more suitable for the cases with hypotension or hypovolemia.

View full abstract

The biting force of 855 Nigerian children and adults from the age of 3 to 60 was recorded m the Joint Dental Epidemiological Survey in Nigeria in 1981. The biting force of the Nigerian rural group (245 males and 178 females) was significantly greater than those of the Nigerian urban group (227 males and 203 females) and the Japanese males and females.

View full abstract

The concentrations of human immunoreactive β－endorphin -like substances in plasma were measured as a means of determining the effects of general anesthesia and surgical stress on the endogenous morphine-like substances. Sixty-nine adult patients and 44 pediatric patients who had undergone oral surgery in general anesthesia were the subjects of this study. In comparison to the control values, the results of this study showed an increase of β-endorphin concentration in the plasma during anesthesia and surgery. The increase was particularly significant in the patients who had relatively a major surgical stress and in those patients showing a weak anesthetic action, while the patients with relatively a minor surgical stress or strong anesthetic action showed a small increase From these findings, it seems proper to assume that the secretion of β-endorphin in the plasma is accelerated by general anesthesia and surgical stress than to assume that the amount of β-endorphin in the plasma is increased by the administration of anesthetic agents.

View full abstract

The rhythm of mastication is one of the important factors in evaluating the masticatory function. This masticatory rhythm should be observed from both the mandibular movements and masticatory muscular activities. In addition, the changes in the rhythm from the beginning to the end of the mastication process should be reflected by the chosen parameters. In order to achieve this, a new analyzing method was devised in which the electromyographic burst duration time was divided into three divisions based upon the mandibular movement phase, and two parameters were chosen to represent the rhythm. In this paper, the new method was used on the patients with a temporomandibular join dysfunction and patients who had a mandibular segmental resection in order to evaluate its validity and clinical applicability. By the comparison of the masticatory rhythms before and after treatment, the effectiveness of this analyzing method in evaluating the masticatory functions was shown.

View full abstract

The anticancer effects of levanisole, tegafur and their combination were experimentally compared in rats on the 1, 2-dimethylhydrazine (DMH)-induced colonic cancers. DMH at 20 mg/kg of body weight was injected subcutaneously to Donryu rats once a week for 24 weeks long. Nineteen weeks after the start of DMH administration, early colonic cancers were induced and, 28 weeks after, they developed into advanced cancers with distant metastases. From 19 weeks after the start of DMH injection, subcutaneous administration of levamisole at the dose of 2 mg/kg, oral administration of tegafur at 90 mg/kg and their combination were given to the rats daily for nine weeks. The animals were sacrificed 28 weeks after the start of DMH administration. Tegafur was effective, but levamisole with or without tegafur was not effective against early cancer. From 28 weeks after the start of DMH injection, levamisole, tegafur and their combination were administered to the rats daily for four weeks. All of the rats were necropsied when they died. The survival rate and mean survival days were significantly higher and longer in the levamisole groups than in the control rats (p<0.05). The incidence of distant metastases was also significantly lower in the levamisole groups than in the control group.

View full abstract

One hundred and thirty patients with Kawasaki disease were examined by the clinical symptoms and findings in order to predict the coronary artery involvement in the early stage. These patients were tested by the two-dimensional echocardiography iteratively from the acute stage and categorized in to the following three groups: (A) Normal coronary artery, (B) transient dilatation of the coronary artery and (C) aneurysm of the coronary artery persisting eight weeks or more after the onset of the illness. Eighteen clinical symptoms and findings within the 14th, 21st and 35th day of the illness were studied. As a result of analysis, a criterion for the early prediction of the coronary artery involvement by clinical manifestations was established as follows: The patients who satisfy the following (I) or (II) are highly suspectable of having a coronary artery involvement: (I) Fever persisting for 14 days or more. (II) Fever persisting for 10 to 13 days, and when two or more out of the following four conditions are satisfied: 1) The age at the onset of the illness is under one year. 2) The lowest value of hemoglobin is 10.0 g/dl or less. 3) The highest white blood cell count is 14000/cmm or more. 4) The lowest value of serum albumin is 3.5 g/dl or less. Two false negative cases (6.5%) were recognized in 31 of the high risk group. Twenty-two false positive cases (22.2%) were observed in 99 of the normal group. One hundred and six cases out of the 130 cases (81.5%) satisfied this criterion. Therefore, this criterion was concluded to be useful to predict the coronary artery involvement in the earlier stage of the illness.

View full abstract