The objective of this multicentre, parallel, blinded, randomized controlled study was to evaluate the efficacy and the safety of cyclosporine (CsA group, 117 dogs) in comparison with methylprednisolone (MP group, 59 dogs) in the treatment of atopic dermatitis for 4 months. Mean induction dose of both drugs (5 mg/kg CsA, 0.75 mg/kg MP) was tapered over time according to the clinical response. At the end of the study, the mean estimated percentage reduction from baseline (confidence interval) of lesion scores was 52% (44-59) and 45% (35-56), and the reduction in pruritus score was 36% (27-43) and 33% (23-43) in dogs in the CsA and MP groups, respectively. These percentages were not significantly different between groups. A significantly better overall assessment of efficacy was obtained in the CsA-treated dogs (76 vs. 63% responses excellent or good in the CsA compared with MP group). CsA-treated dogs presented a higher frequency of gastrointestinal disorders, mainly vomiting, but MP dogs tended to be more susceptible to infections. There was no remarkable change over baseline of the haematological and biochemical parameters in the two groups.

This study investigated whether the rate at which children with delayed language process auditory stimuli can be increased through a process of shaping with synthesized speech stimuli. Results indicate that stimuli with slowed down critical formant cues were easier for these 24 children with delayed language to discriminate and that training with stimuli of extended duration did generalize to stimuli of normal durations. Implications of these findings and usefulness of this methodology are discussed.

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Following controlled ocular penetrating injuries in rabbits, autologous blood was injected into the vitreous. All animals were examined with ultrasonography, ophthalmoscopy and photography. After 3 weeks the animals were sacrificed and serial histologic sections were made on the enucleated globes. Fibroblasts and collagen were found in the vitreous. In additional eyes, the altered vitreous was removed and examined by gel electrophoresis following limited pepsin digestion. Type I collagen was an important component of vitreous fibrosis. In contrast, only type II collagen was detected in normal vitreous. The collagen formation after hemorrhagic injury may follow a similar process of wound healing in other tissues.