Morphological contributions to the knowledge of testicular pathology (author's transl)

Among a serie of more than 500 biopsies, the authors show some testicular lesions of difficult interpretation which do not seem to have been reported previously. The electron-microscopical findings are: Contrarily to the uniform thickening of the seminal tube's anhista basal hyalino -esclerosis, in the Klinefelter's syndrome, the anhista shows focal bizarre thickenings, which have been repeteadly observed in the 15 cases studied. Well defined collagen inside the Leydigs's cytoplasm the authors discuss the possible importance of this unique finding in a 28 years old azoospermyc as revealing cellular inmaturity (fibroblastic origin of the interstitial cells). In light microscopy, they discuss the role of the "Hiatus Germinalis", typical of the oligospermies, as related to alterations of the maturation process.     

Trypsin inhibitors in human urine (author's transl)

By using ammonium sulfate, Arg-Sepharose and gel filtration, an urinary trypsin inhibitor (UTI) with molecular weight of 67,000 (UTI7) was isolated from normal human urine. The yield of UTI7 was about 3,200 U per liter of urine. When urine was acidified, an uropepsin-like substance was activated which caused molecular weight change of UTI7. New UTIs had molecular weight of 45,000 and 22,000 (UTI4-5 and UTI-2-2), respectively. These inhibitors showed a strong effect on trypsin, alpha--chymotrypsin and lesser extent on plasmin and elastase, but had no effect on esterolytic activity on thrombin and the first components of complement Cls an Clr.     

Epidemiology of human hydatidosis in the IX Region of la Araucania, Chile 1991-1998

In the region of la Araucania, located in the south of Chile (37 degrees 24'-39 degrees 34' South lat.), the economy is based in cattle raising and agriculture. The cases of human hydatidosis, mortality and notification registered in la Araucania 1991-1998 are reviewed. The rate for hydatid disease is 38.5 per 100,000 population. Liver (47.1%) and lung (40.7%) were the most affected viscera. Days in hospital, 11-20 the 56.1%. Disease in female is 51.1%. The mortality rate is 0.8 per 100,000, the most frequently affected county is Imperial. The age group 15-44 years is the most affected. The notification rate is 8.74 per 100,000 population. The rate for hydatid disease is higher than the rate of notification, then necessarily there exist a subnotification. We think that it is necessary to investigate the serological prevalence of hydatidosis in the population of the IX Region Araucania.