Complexos fosfínicos e suas aplicações na medicina

Phosphines are well known to chemists. The ligands themselves are widely used in organic synthesis (e.g. The Wittig reaction) and transition metal phosphine complexes have been studied extensively primarily for their applications as hydrogenation catalysts (e.g. Wilkinson's catalyst). In this article attention is focused on the biological properties of phosphines and metal phosphine complexes since the triethylphosphine Au(I) complex, auranofin, has been used as antiarthritic drug for clinical use. This fact has provided a stimulus for exploration of the biological chemistry of phosphines and their metal complexes. Metal phosphine complexes also offer potential as heart-imaging agents and anticancer drugs.

Parasitoses em lactentes de 0-12 meses atendidos na Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu - São Paulo

Infestation by protozoa and/or helminths is considered to be extremely rare in infants. We therefore reviewed the records of all infants up to 12 mth of age attending the Paediatric Department from January 1973 to June 1977, in order to assess the frequency of stool examinations for parasites within this age group, the percentage of positive results in these examinations, and some personal characteristics which propitiated parasitic infestation. Some characteristics of the investigated infants were compared to those of a representative sample of the total number of infants attending during the same period. Stool examinations were realized in 11.8% of the 1,162 attending patients and of those, 15.3% were positive. The proportion of positive cases became 24.0% when the infants in whom there was a history of parasites being passed were included. Ascaris lumbricoides and Giardia lamblia were the parasites most frequently found, respectively in 42.8% and 37.1% of the positive cases. The only detected difference between the control group and the group of infants who had parasitologic examinations was the presence of diarrhea, significantly more frequent in the investigated group. The proportion of positive cases was significantly greater in girls, in infants older than 6 mth and when diarrhea was present for up to 15 days, than in boys, in infants up to 6 mth of age and in chronic diarrhea, respectively. Our results show that parasites were investigated in only a small percentage of infants under 1 yr of age, but that in this age group already, parasitic infestation does occur with a certain frequency. As investigated cases were selected, mainly due to the presence of diarrhea, the real prevalence of parasitism in infants under 1 yr of age was impossible to evaluate.

Megaestruturacao pre-cambriana do territorio brasileiro baseada em dados geofisicos e geologicos

Crustal discontinuities may be seen as A-type collision sutures with triple junction arrays. Shear belts developed at the block borders due to oblique plate convergence. A consistent litho-structural zoning may be observed along the border zones of the blocks: the known high-grade terrains are exposed along the upper block border and pass to distal granite-greenstone terrains; in the lower block, granite-greenstone terrains form the older basement, and supracrustals occur as a metavolcano-sedimentary belt near or adjacent to the suture. This regional litho-structural framework may be related to diachronous collisions of sialic masses which lead to their amalgamation into an extensive continental mass. -from English summary

Rede neural não supervisionada baseada em transformada Karhunen-Loève para processamento, compressão e reconhecimento de imagens

The merit of the Karhunen-Loève transform is well known. Since its basis is the eigenvector set of the covariance matrix, a statistical, not functional, representation of the variance in pattern ensembles is generated. By using the Karhunen-Loève transform coefficients as a natural feature representation of a character image, the eigenvector set can be regarded as an feature extractor for a classifier.

Penfigo foliaceo no Hospital das Clinicas da Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu, SP

BACKGROUND - Pemphigus foliaceus is an autoimmune bullous disease that is endemic in Brazil and in other South American countries such as Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru and Colombia. OBJECTIVES - To compare the observed clinical and epidemiological data with those referred in the literature. METHOD - Retrospective study in patients with pemphigus foliaceus admitted to and treated at University Hospital of the School of Medicine of Botucatu, SP, Brazil, from 1976 to 1993, analyzing the following variables: age, sex, race, origin and onset of disease. RESULTS - From 1976 to 1993, 63 patients were treated, with an average of 3.7 cases/year. Patients within the age range of 20 to 60 years old were the most affected. Most of the patients were white, females being slightly more affected than males. The majority of male patients were rural workers. Some towns presented higher incidence of cases. Most of the patients from rural areas became sick mainly in summer and in autumn. Occurrence of similar cases was observed in blood-related family members and neighbors. CONCLUSIONS - Clinical and epidemiological data were similar to those referred in the literature.

Estudo preliminar de uma metodologia baseada no conceito de graus-dia, para previsão das fases fenológicas de culturas agrícolas

This work develops a methodology (using the degree-days concept and linear regression), to forecast the duration of phenological phases in crops. An experiment was conducted in the greenhouse with three cultivars of cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.), cv. Califórnia-781, Tvx 5058-09C and IT 81D-1032. The methodology was based on the relative thermal efficiency rate, determined for each species or cv. The results show that the proposed methodology may be a good alternative in works involving crops, especially because it does not require the repetition of the experiments.

Hidrocistoma écrino e apócrino na pálpebra - Casuística na Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu- São Paulo

Background - Hidrocystomas ecrine and apocrine may be observed in the eyelids. Objective - The purpose of this study was to observe the occurrence of eyelid hidrocystoma (eccrine or apocrine), as well as the relation between clinical and histopathological diagnosis. Patients and Methods - 42 patients were selected, with a total of 52 lesions, attended between January 1990 to April 1999, at the Botucatu Medical School, with diagnosis of hidrocystoma confirmed by histopathology diagnosis. Result - Hidrocystoma occurred in 0.07% of patients undergoing lesion removal during this period. Eccrine and the apocrine hidrocystoma were frequently observed in female patients, aged over 40 years. The clinical picture ranged from about 1 to 5 years. The lesions were mainly located in the lower eyelid and presented as a single lesion. The clinical diagnosis agreed with the histopathological diagnosis in 67.31% of the apocrine hidrocystomas, and 9.62% of the eccrine hidrocystomas. Conclusions - Apocrine hidrocystoma was the most frequently observed eyelid hidrocystoma. The correlation between clinical and histopathological diagnosis was higher for apocrine hidrocystomas.

Avaliação da prescrição médica em pediatria, baseada nos indicadores do uso de medicamentos selecionados pela oms em municipio do interior do estado de São Paulo

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that prescriptions of medicaments must be one parameter utilized to know how the medication is used by people. To do so, one specific methodology has been indicated, that is, the selected indicators of the use the medicaments. We applied this methodology with the aim of presenting a descriptive study of the physician prescription in Pediatric Clinic of the Health Basics Units. The results obtained are: the average number of medicaments prescribed with prescription was 2.6; the percentage of the medicaments prescribed with the generic name was 32%; the percentage of the prescriptions with antibiotics was 44.6%; the percentage of the prescriptions with injections was 10.4%; the percentage of the medicaments prescribed that are part of the municipal list was 22.8%, 27.5% for the program Dose Certs of the secretary of the State of São Paulo, and 50.4% by adding by adding the two lists. The essentiality of the medicaments prescribed may be considered very low, because only 32.6% appear in the RENAME. The percentage of the medicaments really dispensed was 39.9%. The medicaments more prescribed, according to the classification of the Anatomic-Therapeutic-Chemical (ATC), were the ones which acted in Respiratory System (26.8%), followed by anti-infectives for systemic use (16.4%) and by medicaments with acted in Alimentary tract and metabolism (15.8%). The conclusion is that the prescribers are moved by commercial influence of the drug makers, first because of the low prescription of medicaments by their generic name, second by the low number of medicaments effectively dispensed and then the low concordance between the ones prescribed and the ones included in the lists patterned by Tabatinga and by the State of São Paulo.

Análise filogenética de Phytophthora capsici Leonian do estado de São Paulo baseada na seqüência de nucleotídeos da região ITS-5.8S rDNA

Phylogenetic analysis through morphological and cultural traits is considered inconsistent and hard to be scientifically accepted once there is no way to establish the direction of evolution on morphological traits. Molecular markers are suitable for phylogenetic analysis. The sequencing of ITS1 and ITS2 (internal transcribed spacers) regions and of 5.8S gene from ribosomal DNA were used to estimate the genetic variation and distance of 10 Phytophthora capsici isolates. The amount of genetic variation amongst isolated P. capsici from distinct regions of São Paulo State was 0.1 to 1.6 and 0.1 to 1.1% at ITS1 and ITS2, respectively, and a phylogenetic distance of about 78.5% between P. capsici and Phytophthora spp. was observed.

Trabalhando com estratégias de ensino-aprendizado por descoberta na área da saúde: a problematização e a aprendizagem baseada em problemas.

Considering the changes in teaching in the health field and the demand for new ways of dealing with knowledge in higher learning, the article discusses two innovative methodological approaches: problem-based learning (PBL) and problematization. Describing the two methods' theoretical roots, the article attempts to identify their main foundations. As distinct proposals, both contribute to a review of the teaching and learning process: problematization, focused on knowledge construction in the context of the formation of a critical awareness; PBL, focused on cognitive aspects in the construction of concepts and appropriation of basic mechanisms in science. Both problematization and PBL lead to breaks with the traditional way of teaching and learning, stimulating participatory management by actors in the experience and reorganization of the relationship between theory and practice. The critique of each proposal's possibilities and limits using the analysis of their theoretical and methodological foundations leads us to conclude that pedagogical experiences based on PBL and/or problematization can represent an innovative trend in the context of health education, fostering breaks and more sweeping changes.

Conhecimento de estudantes de medicina sobre o processo de doacção de córneas

Purpose: To compare knowledge of medical students about the cornea donation process among those who already studied Ophthalmology and the others. Methods: A questionnaire containing data as: age, sex, graduation year, and 10 multiple-choice questions about the subject was applied to medical students from the interior of São Paulo state, Brazil. The questions were: age for donation, contraindication for transplants, the time limit to remove the cornea, among others. The knowledge regarding cornea donation was compared between the two groups: students who already studied Ophthalmology (Group A) and the others (Group B). Results: The study group was composed of 402 students, of whom 140 were of group A and 262 of group B. Knowledge between the two groups was different, but not statistically significant (p=0.8328). Conclusion: Knowledge about the cornea donation process among the interviewed seemed to be insufficient, even those who had studied Ophthalmology. Information and education about transplants in Medical Schools should be improved.