A.G. Baikie

Cytogenetic Studies in Acute Leukaemia

It is not easy to see what should be done to prevent symptoms of the kind described in this paper. Faced by a patient with a duodenal ulcer who is known to be a moderate drinker and who has had a number of acute complications of his ulcer, the surgeon must choose whether or not to operate. If he does not do so he may endanger the life of his patient. If he carries out a partial gastrectomy he might convert a reasonably adjusted individual into a chronic alcoholic, incapable of work, a burden to himself and his family alike. A warning about the possible effects of drinking after operation should be given, and if the patient is obviously drinking to excess he should be referred for psychiatric help. Undue preoccupation with dumping symptoms, persistent loss of or failure to regain weight, and repeated requests for potentially habit-forming drugs should all be regarded as warning signals indicating that the patient might be heading for a breakdown or addiction. In the absence of any clearly defined pattern of behaviour or of personality it is not easy to avoid operating on those who might thereby be exposed to a special risk of breakdown. Those who show psychopathic features or who are prone to resort to drink to relieve their anxieties should be detected before operation so that psychiatric treatment can be started before and continued after operation. By doing this one might hope to avoid some of the unfortunate consequences of partial gastrectomy described in this paper. Summary

ANKYLOSING SPONDYLITIS AND CHRONIC INFLAMMATORY DISEASES OF THE INTESTINES.

yet. The occurrence of false positives in the latex test does not, we know, imply a greater degree of sensitivityrather, it seems to be due to some random factor not yet identified. Goldin (1962) encountered two false positives in his 69 cases. The Ortho Research Foundation (1961) differ from us in their much bigger series. Their latex testing gave 2.09% false-negative and 0.14% false-positive reactions. Conversely, their frog tests gave values of 0.50% and 1.51% respectively. It is clearly necessary for the clinicians who request tests for pregnancy to agree with the pathologists performing these tests about the limits of accuracy that should be acceptable. So far as the laboratory is concerned there is much to recommend a tube test which is of approximately equal effectiveness to the more laborious biological tests. However, our limited experience shows that if the latex test is adopted, an appreciable number of false-positive results must be expected, a situation which hitherto has not had to be considered. We are reluctantly unable to recommend the latex test to our clinical colleagues unless they are prepared to accept the possible consequences of the false-positive results. There is one aspect of the latex test which may, however, be used to advantage, even though it is not used for pregnancy diagnosis. To confirm the diagnosis of chorionepithelioma and other moles it is usual to carry out a quantitative biological test with urine dilutions. The quantitative Hogben test (Hobson, 1952) uses six toads and is therefore wasteful of animals and time. We believe that the latex test may be valuable here, but have not had the opportunity to try it. Summary Two methods of testing urine for pregnancy are compared. One is a recently introduced sensitized latex particle precipitation test, and this is compared with the widely used Hogben test-a biological test using Xenopus laevis female frogs.