Edwin E. Osgood

Hemoglobin Yakima: I. Clinical and Biochemical Studies *

Three members of a family who have erythrocytosis and a new hemoglobin, designated hemoglobin Yakima, are described. The abnormal hemoglobin is characterized by the substitution of histidine for aspartic acid at residue 99 in the 8l-chain. Of three possible structure-function relations which would account for the increased oxygen affinity of hemoglobin Yakima, only two seem likely. These are: (a) an intrachain shift in the normal relations between the F and G helices and the heme group, or (b) an effect of the substituted side chain at a region of contact between nonpolar residues of the a- and fl-chains which favors the oxyhemoglobin quarternary structure.

APLASTIC ANEMIA TREATED WITH DAILY TRANSFUSIONS AND INTRAVENOUS MARROW; CASE REPORT

Excerpt This case is of interest for several reasons. The disease is uncommon. This patient received 43 transfusions totaling almost 22 liters of blood in 52 days. This prolonged life but produced ...

Methods for analyzing survival data, illustrated by Hodgkin's disease.

Abstract Reference logarithmic probability curves based on data in the literature with their parameters are given for survival in Hodgkins disease after onset and after treatment or diagnosis. Methods of reporting survival data which are better adapted for construction of reference curves are given. The value of the random number sign test and its extreme simplicity as a method of comparison of results of therapy within series and with such reference data is illustrated. The data available do not show any significant improvement in survival time since antibiotics and alkylating agents have been available. Superior results as noted from the literature have been obtained by the use of two different programs of administration of ionizing radiation. These results indicate that it is not enough to specify merely the agent used in therapy. The manner of using that agent may be equally important.

Comparative survival times of x-ray treated versus P32 treated patients with chronic leukemias under the program of titrated, regularly spaced total-body irradiation.

In the period from January 1941 to July 1951, treatment of 163 patients with chronic leukemia by the method of titrated, regularly spaced total-body irradiation (1, 2) was started. The basic principles of treatment were identical for all of these patients, but some were given spray roentgen irradiation and others internal irradiation by intravenously injected radioactive phosphorus (P32). No difference between the clinical response to x-ray irradiation and to P32 was noted. A comparison was made of the survival times of the two groups to determine if spray irradiation by x-rays offers a better prognosis than equivalent internal irradiation by radioactive phosphorus. Leukemia is a completely disseminated neoplasm, with infiltration of all organs and tissues. It has repeatedly been observed that the feeling of well-being of the patient with this disease is maximal when leukocytosis, hepatomegaly, splenomegaly, anemia, and lymphadenopathy are minimal. To reach all neoplastic cells, total-body irradiation sho...

DIAGNOSIS OF DISSECTING ANEURYSM OF THE AORTA

Excerpt Although more than 400 cases of dissecting aneurysm have been reported, only 11 have been correctly diagnosed during life. Shennan,1in an extensive review of the literature up to 1933, acce...

Human chromosome uncoiling and dissociation

The treatment of human chromosomes with solutions of low ionic strength produces changes in their characteristic morphology, in particular a 0.01 M solution of KCl produces uncoiling of the primary coils of the chromosome; and when the metaphase cells are allowed to rupture by air drying without fixation, the uncoiled chromosomes will dissociate into their constituent longitudinal subunits. The action of the monovalent salt KC1 is reduced in the presence of the divalent salts CaCl2 or MgCl2; and if the proper balance between the divalent and monovalent salts is maintained, the uncoiling and dissociation of the chromosomes is entirely prevented.

DRUG INDUCED HYPOPLASTIC ANEMIAS AND RELATED SYNDROMES

Excerpt The object of this paper is to give a concise review of current concepts of the diagnosis and therapy of hypoplastic anemias and the closely related conditions known as erythrocytic hypopla...

TISSUE CULTURE IN THE STUDY OF LEUKOCYTIC FUNCTIONS

with or without a plasma clot, have given valuable information on the motility, living morphology, and mitotic activity of leukocytes and are well adapted to phase microscopy and time-lapse moving picture studies. The classic work of Maximow and Bloom was done by these methods and has been reviewed by Bloom.s I t was the time-lapse moving picture studies on such preparations by Rich, Wintrobe, and Lewis’O which made possible the first complete descrip tion of the method of locomotion of the different series of leukocytes. The double cover-slip technique, when combined with a perfusion device such as that described by Pomerat,” permits the direct observation or time-lapse photography under phase microscopy of the action of many variables on living leukocytes in culture. The action of fixatives and various poisons as described by Hsu and Pomerat12 could well be applied to this technique. By exposing such cultures to hypotonic Gey’s solution and then to a fixative, Hsu13 has shown that human leukocytes as well as many other cells show marked degrees of aneuploidyl* and polyploidy, and has published some of the most beautiful pictures extant of human chromosomes.16 The roller-tube method of tissue culture16 which has been so successful in the culture of other types of cells has, with a single exception, proved to date unsatisfactory for the growth of he-mic cells. This single exception, however, is very important, for de Bruyn,’’ while working in Gey’s laboratory, was the first to grow leukocytes of any series other than the monocytic over long periods of time. The strain of lymphoblasts she started in culture from a transplantable mouse lymphosarcoma is still growing well after more than five years.’* BichellB has also succeeded in growing mouse hemic cells in hanging drop cultures in a sort of symbiosis with actively growing fibroblasts. The cells he cultured were leukemic lymphocytes and plasmocytes of the mouse derived from transplantable leukemias, and these cells have been cultured through many passages and over long periods of time. A continuous flow large-scale culture deviceao has given the longest cell survival (58 days) of any method developed prior to the gradient culture for the granulocytic series derived from human marrow. The Carrel and LindberghZ1 whole organ culture technique, in which a continuous pump simulating heart action was connected to the nutrient arteries of a segment of bone with marrow,

CULTURE OF HUMAN MARROW; STUDIES OF THE EFFECTS OF ROENTGEN-RAYS

Excerpt The monographs on the biologic action of roentgen-rays by Duggar1and Scott2and on the effects of roentgen-rays on the blood and blood-forming organs by Selling and Osgood3should be consulte...

RADIOBIOLOGIC OBSERVATIONS ON HUMAN HEMIC CELLS IN VIVO AND IN VITRO

Published observations of 30-years study of the effect of ionizing radiation on human hemic cells in vivo and in vitro are outlined. Heretofore unpublished confirmation of Lajthas concept of the synthetic period in the middle of the intermitotic period is presented. Further evidence that the effect of any agent either on cells in culture or in the body must be interpreted in the light of the concept of an ecology of cells is illustrated. The way in which the alpha cell-n cell concept of cell division in the multicellular organism clarifies the interpretation and understanding of radiation biology as well as cancer is explained. (auth)