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The authors report the results of a retrospective controlled study on the incidence of migraine in centro-temporal epilepsy compared to absence epilepsy, partial epilepsy and a group of patients with cranial trauma without epilepsy. The following observations from this series of 129 patients were made. Migraine was present in 63% of the patients with centro-temporal epilepsy (rolandic epilepsy), in 33% with absence epilepsy, in 7% with partial epilepsy and in 9% of the cranial trauma group. These results suggest that the association of centro-temporal epilepsy and migraine is non-fortuitous and also to a lesser degree in absence epilepsy. The role of neurotransmitters in this association is discussed. No decrease in cerebral blood flow was observed in 12 patients with rolandic epilepsy on a Hm-PAO SPECT study.

From a prospective study of 47 epileptic patients (26 men and 21 women) 25 with a left and 22 with a right temporal epileptic focus, the authors show that depression measured by the HARD score, is more severe in males, with a left epileptic focus. These results and the vulnerability to depression of left temporal lobe epileptic patients are analyzed.

The importance of the symptoms linked to a frontal disorder in the intellectual and behavioral sequelas of severe cranial trauma, is now measured carefully because these troubles are one of the most important obstacle to the social and professional come-back. The handicap linked to a disorder of the frontal lobe is not well known in all its neurological, mental and sociological dimensions because the diagnosis is not easy. To help to this diagnosis, the study of cerebral blood flow with SPECT is usefull in medical practice. We present here 4 clinical cases of post-trauma frontal syndrome not easy to measure. With a measure of cerebral blood flow with SPECT, it was observed a decrease of frontal blood flow, that allowed to link the neuropsychological symptom to a frontal lobe disorder. It seems that in these conditions the post-trauma frontal syndrome is not so uncommon.

When ferric-hemoglobin is irradiated by X- or γ-ray photons up to absorbed doses of 50,000 rad, no modifications are observed in the EPR spectra of this molecule. It is shown that this radioresistance is not due to a protection of the iron ion of the porphyrin ring by the globins which are around it, but that is due to some intrinsic property of this ring, which suggests that the symmetry of the crystalline field is not greatly modified by these ionizing radiation doses.

Orthogonal and oblique factor analysis represent an alternative to Fourier analysis in the evaluation of cardiac dynamic behaviour in gated blood pool studies. In order to estimate their respective places, orthogonal factor analysis (OFA), factor analysis of dynamic structures (FADS) and Fourier analysis (FA) are tested on a dynamic and periodical phantom with well known and reproducible kinetics. The phantom data are acquired under standard conditions by varying the counting rates and the temporal frequency sampling. To compare the results of the three methods with maximal objectivity, the relative contribution of each component is calculated. With standard acquisition conditions, FA and OFA give very close results. Only a minor advantage in evaluation of small phase differences is observed with OFA. FADS solutions are effectively related to the dynamic behaviour of the phantom, but their interpretation is more complicated and the quality of the oblique factors is reduced as the number of calculated factors increases. The influence of the counting statistics on FA, OFA and FADS is very similar. However, in cases of undersampling, robustness is demonstrated with the factorial technics.

The authors present a retrospective study of 46 consecutive patients aged from 70 to 79 years (mean 73.3 +/- 2.5 years) with suspected coronary artery disease who, being unfit for exercise tests, were explored by myocardial scintigraphy with thallium 201 after coronary dilatation with intravenous dipyridamole. The examination was well tolerated by 30 patients. Such classical side-effects as chest pain, malaise, dizziness, headache, flushing, vomiting and transient arrhythmia or repolarization disorders were recorded, but they were not more frequent than in younger subjects. However, the occurrence of severe hypotensive malaise relieved by theophylline in two cases and of angina in about one third of patients with myocardial ischaemia means that the procedure must be performed under close supervision. A fall in blood pressure (-11 mmHg on average) and a rise in heart rate (+8 beats/min on average) were usual. Post-scintigraphy follow-up of patients over a mean period of 11.1 +/- 6.2 months showed that a reversible defect of thallium 201 uptake, due to redistribution, is a highly selective indicator of patients who are particularly exposed to a cardiac accident in the short--or mid-term. Only one out of 26 patients without reversible ischaemia (4 p. 100) subsequently presented with a major coronary event (unstable angina). In contrast, in the group of 20 patients with reversible ischaemia three required early myocardial revascularization; furthermore, five serious accidents (29 p. 100) occurred among the 17 patients who were left under medical treatment, including two sudden deaths, two cases of unstable angina and one case of myocardial infarction.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

We describe the preliminary steps for a radio-immunoassay of Thyrotropin Releasing Hormone (TRH). Rabbit antiserum at dilution 1 : 10 000 is used with radioiodinated TRH (125I). We are able to assay from 5 to 1 000 pg unlabeled TRH with an intraassay reporducibility varying from 7 to 4 % and the lowest detectable amount in this system is 10 pg TRH. TRH mean and standard deviation in normal subjects are 136,9 and 25,3 pg/ml.

This paper presents the methodology of a specific radioimmunoassay of the Thyrotropin-Releasing Hormone (TRH) and the results obtained in patients with thyroid disorders.

The authors compare the effects of treatment with thyroid extracts and levothyroxine on T3, T4 and TSH levels in 2 groups of 8 hypothyroid infants. Serum TSH levels were lower in infants receiving thyroid extracts on and after the 15th day. The interest of a treatment associating T4 and T3 and of adapted doses of LT4 is discussed.