Dos conceitos de morte aos critérios para o diagnóstico de morte encefálica

The authors present considerations about death and brain death concepts, as well the legal aspects for its diagnosis in Brazil. They also present the UNICAMP Protocol for the Diagnosis of Brain Death, revised and according with the current law, with standard techniques for the diagnostic exam. They emphasize the importance of a mature ethical position for this frequent and challenging situation.

Vasopressina e morte encefálica

Brain death results in the breakdown of effective central regulatory mechanisms of cardiocirculatory stability, even in patients with artificial mechanical ventilation, correction of electrolytic and acid-basic disorders and maximal conventional pharmacological support of the circulation. Recent evidences have shown that the fall of vasopressin levels in the blood circulation significantly influences the cardiocirculatory stability of patients with brain death, and its exogenous administration is defended by many authors for the management of multiorgan donor patients. In this brief review we analyse and discuss some experimental and clinical relevant studies about the role of vasopressin in the control of cardiocirculatory stability in brain death, and its potential usefulness in the management of multiorgan donor. We conclude that the role of vasopressin in the pathophysiology of brain death and its usefulness as a pharmacological agent in the management of multiorgan donor are not well elucidated, deserving further investigations.

Variabilidade espacial da textura de um latossolo sob cultivo de citros

Relief influences soil texture variability, since it contributes to the time of exposition of the materials to weathering factors. Our work was carried out in the city of Gavião Peixoto (SP), with the objective of characterizing the spatial variability of texture of a dystrophic Red Latosol cultivated with citrus. The hillside was divided into three segments: top, stocking lean and inferior lean. Soil samples were collected in a grid with regular intervals of 50 m, at the depths of 0.0-0.2 m and 0.6-0.8 m, comprising a total of 332 points in an area of 83.5 ha. The data were submitted to descriptive and geostatistics analyses (semivariogram modeling and kriging maps). The spatial behavior of the texture of oxisols is directly related to the relief forms in this study, which controls the direction of surface and subsurface water flows. The concept of homogeneity of clay distribution in the Oxisol profile is a piece of information that can be adjusted by knowing the spatial pattern of this distribution in different relief forms.