Successful laparoscopic surgery for a uterine leiomyoma in a mare

Leiomyomas are the most common of uterine tumours in mares but large tumours are rare. A case with a 15 cm uterine leiomyoma diagnosed by rectal palpation and ultrasound examinations with apparent adverse effects on fertility is reported. Management of the case was by hand assisted laparoscopic tumour removal and unilateral ovariectomy. Complications included post operative pain, tachycardia and wound infection. The mare was confirmed to be in foal after her first cover post surgery.     

对于中国企业来说多元化是陷阱而不是馅饼

只有专业化，企业才可以集中最有效的资源，打造自己的核心竞争力；而没有核心竞争力的企业，必将被市场淘汰。     

Establishment of a potency test by ELISA for a rabies vaccine for animal use in Japan

The ELISA we developed was able to determine the antigen content and was suitable for a potency test, and we described a relative potency assay method which determines the potency of test vaccines by comparing the ELISA value of a test vaccine to that of a reference vaccine. In the present study, we standardized the reference vaccine used for determining the potencies of test vaccines, and established a potency test by ELISA. We evaluated the proposed reference vaccine by the neutralizing antibody responses in dogs after vaccination, by the challenge protection test in guinea pigs (GP potency test), which is the earlier official potency test used in Japan, and by the NIH potency test, which is widely used throughout the world. The results showed that a 4-fold dilution of the proposed reference vaccine induced sufficient immunity in dogs. A 3-fold dilution of the proposed reference vaccine passed the GP potency test. The international units (IU) calibrated by the NIH potency test were 3.7 IU/dose. From the results and the WHO recommendation that veterinary rabies vaccines should have a potency of at least 1.0 IU/dose, we determined to dilute the proposed reference vaccine by 3 fold and regarded it as the reference vaccine. Finally, we confirmed that there is a good agreement between the results of the potency test by ELISA and the results of the GP potency test. The establishment of the potency test by ELISA has made it possible to monitor the potency in the production process and has contributed to the stable production of the vaccine.     

Development of a radioimmunoassay for isometamidium

A radioimmunoassay for the trypanocidal drug isometamidium (ISMM) has been developed using antibodies produced in sheep immumzed against the drug cross-linked to human serum albumin. With ¹⁴C-ISMM as a radioligand, cross-reactivity of the antibodies was determined and found to be less than 3% with pyrithidium, diminazene and quinapyramine and about 13% with homidium. The limit of detection of ISMM in serum without prior extraction was 5.8 pmol/tube and within-assay and between-assay coefficients of variation were four and 14% respectively.Deceased.