Leaf extracts of the Malaysian plant Aglaia laxiflora provided two cytotoxic compounds, a new rocaglaol rhamnoside (1), a known rocaglaol (2), new (but inactive) flavonol-cinnamaminopyrrolidine adducts (3-6), and their probable biosynthetic precursors (7 and trimethoxyflavonol). All structures were elucidated primarily by 2D NMR spectroscopy. The structure and stereochemistry of aglaxiflorin A (3) were confirmed by single-crystal X-ray crystallography.
MeSH terms: Animals; Antineoplastic Agents, Phytogenic/isolation & purification*; Antineoplastic Agents, Phytogenic/pharmacology; Drug Screening Assays, Antitumor; Heterocyclic Compounds, 3-Ring/isolation & purification*; Heterocyclic Compounds, 3-Ring/pharmacology; Humans; Leukemia P388/drug therapy; Malaysia; Molecular Conformation; Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; Plants, Medicinal/chemistry*; Mass Spectrometry; Tumor Cells, Cultured; Spectrometry, Mass, Fast Atom Bombardment; Crystallography, X-Ray; Mice; Rats
The stem of Stephanotis floribunda afforded a new cyclic pentapeptide stephanotic acid (1), possessing a novel 6-(leucin-3'-yl) tryptophan skeleton. The structure of 1 was assigned on the basis of extensive NMR experiments and a chemical reaction and shown to be closely related to the bicyclic octapeptide moroidin (3), a toxin from Laportea moroides.
MeSH terms: Madagascar; Malaysia; Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; Peptides, Cyclic/chemistry*; Plants, Medicinal/chemistry*; Spectrophotometry, Infrared; Spectrophotometry, Ultraviolet; Spectrometry, Mass, Fast Atom Bombardment; Plant Stems/chemistry
Shirley is a 42 year old woman who has rung you 5 days after returning from a 3 week resort holiday in Malaysia and Thailand. You saw her before her trip and administered a hepatitis A vaccine and advised her that she did not require anti malarial drugs as she was only going to large cities and beach resorts. She says she has had a high fever, headache and body aches for several days and that she feels exhausted, but is well enough to come to the surgery. When you see her later that morning, she looks fairly well, although she is moving rather gingerly. She says she has been resting, is drinking lots of fluids, has some anorexia, but no other significant symptoms. Examination reveals a temperature of 38 degrees C and she has a fine morbilliform rash on her body, limbs and neck. There are no other abnormal findings.
Columnar cell variant of papillary carcinoma (CCV-PC) thyroid is a rare and aggressive tumor composed of tall columnar cells that form papillae, glands and solid structures. This paper describes fine needle aspiration (FNA) cytologic features in a case of CCV-PC occurring in the right thyroid lobe of a 27-year-old female. Smears showed tall columnar cells in monolayered, three-dimensional, acinar and occasional papillary clusters. Nuclei were oval or elongated and monomorphic. Nuclear pseudostratification, resembling that seen in respiratory epithelial cells, was present in some of the cell clusters. Occasional cells showed squamous or Hurthle cell metaplasia. Nuclear grooves and intranuclear cytoplasmic inclusions were not seen. Sections of the right lobectomy specimen showed an well-encapsulated CCV-PC with capsular and vascular permeation. Tall cell variant of papillary carcinoma (TCV-PC) can be distinguished from CCV-PC by the oxyphilia of the tumor cells and the absence of nuclear pseudostratification. Colorectal and endometrial adenocarcinomas metastatic to the thyroid may be difficult to distinguish from CCV-PC.
A simple and selective high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method using ultraviolet detection was developed for simultaneous determination of fusidic acid and betamethasone dipropionate in a cream formulation. A Supelcosil LC18 column was used for chromatographic separation. The mobile phase consisted of acetonitrile and 0.01 M disodium hydrogen orthophosphate (70:30, % v/v) adjusted to pH 6 with glacial acetic acid. Analysis was run at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/minute with the detector operating at 235 nm. The standard calibration curve was linear over a concentration range of 0.3 to 1.2 mg/mL for fusidic acid and 9.6 to 38.4 micrograms/mL for betamethasone dipropionate. The average recovery values for fusidic acid and betamethasone dipropionate were almost 100%. The within-run and between-run coefficient of variation and percent error values for the two drugs were all less than 2% and +/- 3%, respectively.
An acute abdomen in pregnancy can be caused by pregnancy itself, be predisposed to by pregnancy or be the result of a purely incidental cause. These various conditions are discussed. The obstetrician often has a difficult task in diagnosing and managing the acute abdomen in pregnancy. The clinical evaluation is generally confounded by the various anatomical and physiological changes occurring in pregnancy itself. Clinical examination is further hampered by the gravid uterus. The general reluctance to use conventional X-rays because of the pregnancy should be set aside when faced with the seriously ill mother. A reluctance to operate during pregnancy adds unnecessary delay, which increases morbidity for both mother and fetus. Such mistakes should be avoided as prompt diagnosis and appropriate therapy are crucial. A general approach to acute abdominal conditions in pregnancy is to manage these problems regardless of the pregnancy.
The aim of the study was to determine the incidence of food and house dust mite (HDM) allergy in patients with nasal congestion and rhinorrhea attending the Otorhinolaryngology Clinic, National University of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur. This was a prospective matched, controlled study of patients skin prick tested with commercial food and common aeroallergens. The participants were 148 Malaysian adults with symptoms of nasal congestion and rhinorrhea and 113 adult Malaysian control subjects without rhinitis symptoms. The skin prick test (SPT) was used to evaluate 11 foods common to the Malaysian diet and 3 HDM inhalants. Forty-eight percent of the patients with rhinitis had positive SPT results to foods, compared with 4.4% of control subjects (P < 0.05). The most commonly implicated foods were shrimp (48%) and rice (30%), which are common in the Malaysian diet. Seventy-two percent of rhinitis patients had positive SPT results to HDM, compared with 22.2% of control subjects (P < 0.05). Patients with rhinitis also had significantly more gastrointestinal problems than control subjects (P < 0.05). The incidences of HDM and food allergy are significantly greater in Malaysian adults with rhinitis symptoms than in control subjects without rhinitis. The effect of avoidance or immunotherapy awaits further study.
Study site: Otorhinolaryngology Clinic, Pusat Perubatan Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (PPUKM), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
We studied the effects of Eurycoma longifolia Jack, commonly known as Tongkat Ali in Malaysia, on the initiation of sexual performance and the weights of sexual accessories in inexperienced castrated male rats. The doses of 200, 400 and 800 mg/kg body weight, which were extracted from E. longifolia Jack, were orally administered to the rats twice daily for 10 days prior to the tests and continued throughout the test period. Testosterone was used as a positive control after injecting 15 mg/kg daily subcutaneously for 32 days. Results showed that E. longifolia Jack produced a dose-dependent increase in sexual performance of the treated animals, but the E. longifolia Jack groups showed lower sexual performance in mounting, intromission and ejaculation than the testosterone group. Further results also showed that E. longifolia Jack promoted the growth of both ventral prostate and seminal vesicles as compared with the control, but the growth of sexual accessories at 800 mg/kg of butanol, methanol, water and chloroform fractions of E. longifolia Jack was less than that of testosterone treated group. The present study therefore gives further evidence of the folkuse of E. longifolia as an aphrodisiac.
This was a retrospective study of odontogenic keratocysts in people from the Singapore-Malaysian region. The purpose of this study was to present the clinicopathologic features of odontogenic keratocysts in the Oriental population and to compare these data with those from other reported studies. Biopsy records from 1981 to 1992 of 61 cases of odontogenic keratocysts from patients in Malaysia and Singapore showed that 42.6% of patients were female and 57.4% of patients were male. Among patients with cysts, 75.4% were Chinese, 6.6% were Malays, 9.8% were Indians and 8.2% were other ethnic groups. The mean age of these patients was 26.98 +/- 15.38 years with a peak incidence occurring in the second to fourth decades. The location of the lesions was more often in the mandible (65.5%) than the maxilla (31.0%). There was a marked predilection for lesions to occur in the posterior mandible. Histologically, 90.2% of the cysts were lined with a para-keratinized stratified squamous epithelium while only 3.3% of the cysts were lined with orthokeratinized stratified squamous epithelium. Mixed para-keratinized and orthokeratinized epithelial linings were observed in 4 cases (6.5%). The cyst linings were mainly uninflamed (95.1%). Inflammation of the cyst wall was found in 42 cases (68.8%). Twelve (19.7%) cases contained keratin in the lumen. A satellite cyst was observed in only 6 cases (9.8%). In conclusion, most clinical and histological features seen in this study were similar to those found for Caucasians. The only clinical feature that was different was the peak age incidence, that ranged from the second to fourth decades, with an absence of a second peak. Odontogenic keratocysts presenting at the site of the dentigerous cyst were observed in 7 cases (11.5%).
MeSH terms: Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Child; China/ethnology; Female; Humans; India/ethnology; Keratins/analysis; Malaysia/epidemiology; Male; Middle Aged; Odontogenic Cysts/ethnology*; Odontogenic Cysts/pathology*; Odontogenic Cysts/chemistry; Retrospective Studies; Singapore/epidemiology; Age of Onset; Age Distribution; European Continental Ancestry Group; Asian Continental Ancestry Group
One of the objectives of this short communication was to add to the literature on the prevalence of oral recurrent aphthous stomatitis (ORAS). This research is based on a total of 11,697 randomly selected Malaysian subjects with an age range of 25-115 years and a mean age of 44.5 +/- 13.9 years who were examined for oral mucosal lesions (ORAS). The prevalence of ORAS detected during the oral examination (average point prevalence) was found to be 0.5% (64 subjects). ORAS formed 5.7% of all lesions detected during the survey. The average point prevalence of ORAS was highest in the indigenous people of Sabah and Sarawak (1.2%), followed by the Chinese (0.7%), the Malays (0.5%) and the Indians (0.1%). This difference was statistically significant (p < 0.001). A review of the English literature on the prevalence of ORAS revealed different prevalence types used by different researchers, namely average point prevalence (APP), self reported life-time prevalence (SLP) and self reported two-year prevalence (STP). The other objective of this paper was to present the different types of prevalence that have been reported in the literature and to discuss the usefulness of such prevalence types in relation to using epidemiology in deriving certain possible etiological associations.
MeSH terms: Adult; Aged; Epidemiologic Methods; Ethnic Groups; Female; Humans; Malaysia/epidemiology; Male; Middle Aged; Sampling Studies; Stomatitis, Aphthous/ethnology; Stomatitis, Aphthous/epidemiology*; Prevalence; Age Distribution; Sex Distribution
18S rDNA sequences from 4 isolates of Babesia gibsoni originating from Japan, Malaysia and Sri Lanka were compared with a previously published, 0.5 kb portion of the 18S rDNA from a B. gibsoni isolate from California, USA, and with the corresponding 18S rDNA sequences of other Babesia spp. Distance, parsimony and maximum likelihood analyses showed almost identical genotypes among the small canine Babesia from Asia, but an unexpectedly distant genetic relationship to that from the USA. While the American isolate segregated together with B. equi, the Asian isolates showed a close relationship to B. divergens and B. odocoilei. These results indicate that small Babesia of dogs originating from North America and Asia belong to different, genetically distantly related species.
Melioidosis caused by Burkholderia pseudomallei is endemic in southeast Asia. The clinical manifestations range from wound infections to acute septicemia. In some cases, recurrence can also occur following complete recovery. Case fatality rates are high and a major factor is the delay in the culture and identification of the bacterium. An immunofluorescent assay (IFAT) using whole-cell antigen for the detection of total antibodies to B. pseudomallei was tested with 650 sera. Using a cut-off value of 1:80, 66 sera from culture-confirmed cases were positive with titers > or = 320. In another 523 sera from patients in which no other etiology could be found, 149 (23.4%) were positive. To monitor disease activity, persistence of antibody levels was investigated on 61 serial sera samples collected from 14 other confirmed cases on follow-up visits while on oral maintenance therapy. The IFAT demonstrated a reduction in titers in cases of localized infections, suggesting that either the infection was being resolved or arrested while septicemic patients maintained high IFAT titers on follow-up, suggesting the possibility of continuous sequestration of antigen from an intracellular source.
Effects of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTABr) micelles on second-order rate constants (k(n)(obs)) for nucleophilic reactions of amines (piperidine and n-butylamine) with ionized phenyl salicylate (PS(-)) reveal a nonlinear decrease with the increase in [D(n)] (where [D(n)] = [CTABr](T) - cmc) at a constant [NaBr] and 35 degrees C. The observed data, at a constant [NaBr], fit reasonably well to a pseudophase model of micelles, and such a data fit gives kinetic parameters such as CTABr micellar binding canstant (K(S)) of PS(-). The effect of [NaBr] upon K(S) is explained with the empirical relationship K(S) = K(S)(0)/(1 + psi[NaBr]), where psi is an empirical parameter.