PROJECT</TITLE>
<H1>Papers of the Month - Feb 99</H1>
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#1.  My old friend Jesse Thompson has written a very fine history 
of the early era of aortic surgery.  This subject includes more 
than aneurysms only, but the aneurysm subject is well covered.  For a
direct link to this paper, <A HREF="http://www1.mosby.com/mosbyscripts/mosby.dll?action=searchDB&searchDBfor=art&artType=full&id=a89989">click here. </A>

Comment by mdt:

Nothing to add.  It is a very definitive short history.

2.    Another good friend of many years, Peter Lawrence of Salt 
Lake City, with his colleagues has published an excellent report regarding
whether there is a familial pattern relating aneurysm disease to
arteriomegaly (big arteries).    For a direct link to this paper, 
<A  HREF="http://www1.mosby.com/mosbyscripts/mosby.dll?action=searchDB&searchDBfor=art&artType=abs&id=a92214"> click here.
</A>

Comment by mdt:  Again, not much to add.  The point is that family members
of patients with arteriomegaly or AAA are those persons who are most
likely to benefit from screening.  I think my lab published its paper on
arteriomegaly and aneurysms in 1982.  The work was done by a
young surgeon in training in my department at Yale, named Chau Dang.  
I've lost track of Chau. Wonder where he is today.

3.  It has been a long standing mystery why the protean manifestations 
of Behcet's disease include aneurysms of the aorta and other vessels.  
An interesting case was reported in JVS last year.    For a direct 
link to this paper, <A  HREF="http://www1.mosb
y.com/mosbyscripts/mosby.dll?action=searchDB&searchDBfor=art&artType=abs&id=a92218">
click here.</A>

In our chapter on molecular mimicry (p 112) for the book PROGRESS IN
VASCULAR SURGERY (eds: JST Yao and WH Pearce; Appleton & Lange, 1997)
we noted a short sequence similarity of one of the Artery-Specific
Antigenic Proteins (ASAP's) with the protein that is a known target of
autoimmunity in Behcet's (the the uveitopathic peptide of retinal
photoreceptor-binding protein.  Curiously, the same short sequence
occurs in a protein of the cytomegalovirus and of the herpes virus 6.