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A 60-year-old asthmatic woman was admitted to our department because of bloody sputum and pneumonia. She had been treated with inhaled becromethasone dipropionate (800 micrograms/day) on an outpatient basis for 3 years. Fiberoptic bronchoscopy revealed polypoid lesions in the trachea, most of which were removed with forceps during the procedure. Numerous lymphocytes were observed in the biopsy specimen. Because immunohistochemical staining denied a monoclonal origin for the accumulated lymphocytes, the lesion was diagnosed as an inflammatory polyp. The patient was treated successfully with antibiotics for her pneumonia, and on a follow-up bronchoscopy 6 months later, only a small remnant of the lesion was noted. This is the fourth report about inflammatory polyps in asthmatics. In the previous 3 cases, however, marked eosinophil infiltration was consistently reported. The lymphocyte predominance in the present case therefore suggests a distinct etiology rather than asthmatic airway inflammation.

A 26-year-old nurse consulted our department because of shortness of breath, wheezing and skin eruption after eating lunch several days before. At the consultation, the symptoms had disappeared, pulmonary function showed no abnormality, and there were no abnormal findings on chest auscultation. Latex allergy was suspected because of a history of wheezing and skin eruption after wearing latex gloves and an elevated serum IgE level specific to latex antigen. After a usage test of medical latex gloves, wheezing, skin eruption, and a decrease of FEV1.0 on pulmonary function testing were observed. The case was therefore diagnosed as latex allergy with bronchial asthma. Her symptoms were not observed after polymer coated gloves were substituted. Latex allergy is apt to complicate food allergy, an initial symptom of the present case. Specific IgE for several kinds of food was also elevated.

The site of action of 3-(2,2,2-trimethylhydrazinium) propionate (THP), a new cardioprotective agent, was investigated in mice and rats. I.p. administration of THP decreased the concentrations of free carnitine and long-chain acylcarnitine in heart tissue. In isolated myocytes, THP inhibited free carnitine transport with a Ki of 1340 microM, which is considerably higher than the observed serum concentration of THP. The major cause of the decreased free carnitine concentration in heart was found to be the decreased serum concentration of free carnitine that resulted from the increased renal clearance of carnitine by THP. The estimated Ki of THP for inhibiting the reabsorption of free carnitine in kidneys was 52.2 microM, which is consistent with the serum THP concentration range. No inhibition of THP on the carnitine palmitoyltransferase activity in isolated mitochondrial fractions was observed. These results indicate that the principal site of action of THP as a cardioprotective agent is the carnitine transport carrier in the kidney, but not the carrier in the heart.

NMR measurements on12B nuclei implanted in a thin sheet of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (Grafoil) have been made to study the magnitude of the polarization of12B and its electric quadrupole coupling. The magnitude of the residual polarization of12B held in carbon material is of crucial importance to the experiment measuring the average polarization of12B produced in the muon capture by12C. It was found that the polarization of12B can be maintained at 101.0±2.2% in Grafoil under a magnetic field of 3 kG. The electric quadrupole coupling was determined to bee 2 qQ/h=+1207.3±8.2 kHz. From the magnitude and the sign of the electric field gradienteq, the location of12B was found to be a substitutional site in the carbon lattice. The anomalous B-C bond involving thesp 2 hybrid orbitals with partially filledp z electrons is also discussed.

1. Monoamine oxidase (MO) does not attack cyclopropylamine, cyclohexylamine, cis- and trans-phenylcyclopropylamine. These results are consistent with previous observations that MO is unable to catalyze the degradation of α-alkylated amines.