Upendra N Pathak

The metabolism of iron-dextran given as a total-dose infusion to iron deficient Jamaican subjects

Summary The movements of iron‐dextran, following a total dose infusion of up to 2550 mg. iron in six severely iron deficient patients, have been studied using a 59Fe tagged complex. The preparation is removed from the plasma in 8–10 days. Fifty per cent of the iron was incorporated into haemoglobin in 3–4 weeks and the iron stores replenished rapidly.

Possible X-autosomal translocation in a girl with gonadal dysgenesis

By screening patients with primary amenorrhoea with chromosome studies, many anomalies of the sex chromosomes are detected (Jacobs et al., 1961; Clavero, 1964; Philip, Sele, and Trolle, 1965b; Shearman, 1968; Thorburn and Pathak, 1970). These range from classical Turners syndrome with 45,XO, mosaicism, 46,XY, apparently normal 46,XX karyotypes, and structural anomalies including deletions, isochromosomes, and fragments. During such a programme over the past 5 years (Thorburn and Pathak, 1970) we found a patient who appears to have a translocation which could be interpreted as either a t(C;C) or a t(X;C). We have been able to find only two similar cases previously reported (Mann et al., 1965; Neuhauser and Back, 1966), and such an abnormality is not mentioned in comprehensive series or reviews of sex chromosome abnormalities (Court Brown et al., 1964; Ferguson-Smith, 1965; Jacobs, 1969). In this paper we present the detailed clinical and cytogenetic findings in this patient and discussion of the possibility of X autosomal translocation. This patient was included in a series of cases of primary amenorrhoea previously reported (Thorburn and Pathak, 1970).

OBESITY IN THE JAMAICAN PARTURIENT

The reproductive performance of one hundred obese negro women was compared with that of an equivalent number of negro women of average weight. The main hazards of obesity were hypertension and diabetes mellitus. The incidence of prolonged labour was not increased, and there was a low incidence of prematurity. The infants were significantly larger in the obese group but despite this, dispropor‐tion seldom occurred. The obese patients gained less weight antenatally, and lost more in the puerperium, than the controls. There was an age‐related difference in mean antenatal weight‐gain and puerperal weight‐loss in the obese, but not in the controls.