Surgeons reattach boy’s three severed limbs
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Tuesday, March 29, 2005A team of Australian surgeons yesterday reattached both hands and one foot to 10-year-old Perth boy, Terry Vo, after a brick wall which collapsed during a game of basketball fell on him, severing the limbs. The wall gave way while Terry performed a slam-dunk, during a game at a friend’s birthday party.
The boy was today awake and smiling, still in some pain but in good spirits and expected to make a full recovery, according to plastic surgeon, Mr Robert Love.
“What we have is parts that are very much alive so the reattached limbs are certainly pink, well perfused and are indeed moving,” Mr Love told reporters today.
“The fact that he is moving his fingers, and of course when he wakes up he will move both fingers and toes, is not a surprise,” Mr Love had said yesterday.
“The question is more the sensory return that he will get in the hand itself and the fine movements he will have in the fingers and the toes, and that will come with time, hopefully. We will assess that over the next 18 months to two years.
“I’m sure that he’ll enjoy a game of basketball in the future.”
The weight and force of the collapse, and the sharp brick edges, resulted in the three limbs being cut through about 7cm above the wrists and ankle.
Terry’s father Tan said of his only child, the injuries were terrible, “I was scared to look at him, a horrible thing.”
The hands and foot were placed in an ice-filled Esky and rushed to hospital with the boy, where three teams of medical experts were assembled, and he was given a blood transfusion after experiencing massive blood loss. Eight hours of complex micro-surgery on Saturday night were followed by a further two hours of skin grafts yesterday.
“What he will lose because it was such a large zone of traumatised skin and muscle and so on, he will lose some of the skin so he’ll certainly require lots of further surgery regardless of whether the skin survives,” said Mr Love said today.
The boy was kept unconscious under anaesthetic between the two procedures. In an interview yesterday, Mr Love explained why:
“He could have actually been woken up the next day. Because we were intending to take him back to theatre for a second look, to look at the traumatised skin flaps, to close more of his wounds and to do split skin grafting, it was felt the best thing to do would be to keep him stable and to keep him anaesthetised.”
Professor Wayne Morrison, director of the respected Bernard O’Brien Institute of Microsurgery and head of plastic and hand surgery at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, said he believed the operation to be a world first.
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With the development of biotechnology in the modern information age, humans have conducted more and more in-depth research and development on enzymes. Correspondingly, the application of enzymes in medicine has become more and more extensive. Through a review of recent research papers on the application of enzymes in medicine, it provides certain technical guidance and references for further research on enzymes in human and animal medicine. This article summarizes the application of some enzymes in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of diseases from the aspects of enzymatic diagnosis and medicinal enzymes, confirming the indispensable importance and significance of diagnostic enzyme in our lives.
- Application of enzymes in disease diagnosis
Enzymology diagnosis is a method to determine the content and changes of certain substances in the body through the catalytic action of enzymes, and to diagnose diseases through changes in the original enzyme activity in the body. Under pathological conditions, when cells are damaged, the enzyme in the cells will be released into body fluids, so the activity and content of enzymes in body fluids can be measured for disease diagnosis. And because of the high efficiency and specificity of enzyme catalysis, the enzymatic diagnosis method is reliable, simple and fast, and has been widely used in clinical diagnosis.
The enzyme detection method mainly detects its activity through the enzyme activity level and the enzyme activity ratio. In general, the content of certain enzymes in the body fluids of healthy people is relatively constant, but when some diseases occur, the activity levels of certain enzymes in the body fluids will change greatly. Therefore, it is possible to make a preliminary judgment on the occurrence and location of the disease by measuring the activity level of specific enzymes in body fluids. The enzyme activity level and the area under the enzyme activity time curve are related to the extent or amount of tissue cell damage. If the enzyme activity increases in a large amount, it indicates a large amount of tissue damage, such as liver and skeletal muscle. The severity of cell damage can be expressed by the ratio of mitochondrial and cytoplasmic enzyme activities. Severe cell damage or necrosis will cause enzymes in mitochondria to be released into the blood, such as m-AST and glutamate dehydrogenase (GLDH) in mitochondria.
Plasma enzyme levels are only obtained through a special structure or tissue in the same organ, and the enzyme activity produced in all cells of the organ is roughly the same. For example, the activity of ALT, ?-glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT) or GLDH is related to aminotransferase in liver disease, and the ratio of these enzymes can be used for differential diagnosis in acute liver disease. In addition, within a certain range, the ratio of AST/ALT can also reflect the severity and severity of chronic hepatitis. However, when the liver is damaged to a certain degree, the sensitivity of enzymatic detection will be affected.
There are some specific enzymes in different tissues or organs of the human body (these enzymes are mainly synthesized in a certain tissue or organ, but rarely come from other tissues). When a certain disease occurs or cell tissue is damaged, these cells are destroyed, and the synthesis of specific enzymes is reduced and the activity is reduced. Therefore, we can determine the location of disease or cell damage by detecting the activity of some specific enzymes corresponding to a certain organ or tissue contained in body fluids. For example, serum cholinesterase (CHE) is a non-specific esterase that is synthesized by liver cells and released into the blood. When liver cells are diseased or the intestinal-hepatic circulation is impaired, the synthesis of CHE decreases and the activity decreases.
- Application of enzymes in disease treatment and prevention
Enzymes can be used as drugs to treat many diseases, and enzymes used as drugs for disease treatment and prevention are called medicinal enzymes. As a molecular-level therapeutic drug, enzyme preparations have the characteristics of specificity, high efficiency, and low toxic and side effects. They play an important role in preventing and treating diseases and anti-aging. Fibrinolytic enzymes are proteins with biological activity, which can activate the fibrinolytic system in the body and promote fibrinolysis. They are widely used clinically in the treatment of myocardial infarction and various thrombotic diseases.
Many scholars have isolated fibrinolytic active substances from the metabolites of microorganisms, such as Streptocolcus Hemolytius, Streptokinase, Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylokinase and Nattokinase.
- Application of enzyme catalysis process in pharmacy
Enzyme catalysis, as an important part of chiral technology and green chemistry, has been applied to the production of some chemical drugs in the pharmaceutical industry. In addition, the enzyme catalysis process has the characteristics of green, high efficiency, mild action conditions, and can be carried out in the water phase, and has high regioselectivity and stereoselectivity.
In conclusion, traditional chemical process pharmacy has the disadvantages of consumables, time-consuming and labor-intensive, and waste generation. Gradually people began to study biotechnology pharmacy, and the main research object of using biotechnology pharmacy was enzymes. Enzyme reaction has the characteristics of specificity and high efficiency, which can be used for targeted diagnosis and treatment of diseases. It uses the characteristics of specific enzyme catalysis, high efficiency and mild action conditions to produce drugs, and has the advantage of small side effects. This shows that enzymes lie in our lives and have extremely important meaning and status. However, when using enzyme-catalyzed technology to manufacture drugs, it is necessary to know that different enzymes require different reaction conditions. Therefore, the application of more reasonable and easy-to-operate enzyme reactors for industrial production of drugs needs to continue in-depth development and research.
Creative Enzymes is a worldwide leading company in diagnostic enzymes manufacturing and supply, committed to providing customers with diverse enzyme products and custom enzyme-related services for medical and research diagnosis. Relying on professional team and state-of-art technologies, Creative Enzymes have gained solid reputation for having top of the line products and services. The product lines cover a wide range of application areas, including but not limited to blood lipids, liver function, kidney and pancreas function, diabetes, POCT bio-sensor and clinical diagnosis. Every product is presented with detailed description, source, form, activity and other biochemical properties.
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South Africa police staff arrested for fraud
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Monday, June 2, 2008
South African media have reported that police staff in South Africa were arrested on allegations of fraud. Police said Saturday that nine people including six employees of the South African Police Service were arrested in Mpumalanga.
A spokesperson for the police service, Captain Leonard Hlathi, said that the other three individuals have resigned from the police. Hlathi said that the individuals were arrested for fraud, corruption and theft, and allegedly defrauded South Africa of approximately R2.5-million (about US$327,000) between 2003 and 2007.
| This was a syndicate that has cost the police service more than R2,5million and we believe we have made a breakthrough. | ||
“This was a syndicate that has cost the police service more than R2.5million and we believe we have made a breakthrough,” said Hlathi.
Hlathi told the South African Press Association that the investigation began in April 2007 and showed that the suspects registered companies in the South Africa police database, though no existing files were found for the companies themselves. He said that three out of the five companies were found not to exist. The suspects were arrested on Friday by the Mpumalanga organized crime unit.
“We have a warrant of arrest that we are happy to execute against you right away. You are now under arrest on charges of fraud and you have the right to remain silent if you so wish,” said Superintendent Obed Ngwenya, police organized crime unit head, prior to arresting one of the individuals.
The individuals arrested appeared in the Nelspruit magistrate’s court on Friday. They were released with a subsequent court date set for June 21.
