Renal amyloidosis complicating Crohn's disease. Case report and review of the literature

A patient with renal amyloidosis secondary to Crohn's disease is reported. The results of colchicine therapy after 3 1/2 years of treatment were so good that we review relevant data from the literature.     

Adenoid cystic carcinoma in patients in the ENT Department of the K. Marcinkowski University of Medical Sciences in Poznan in years 1980-1995

In the years 1980-1995 60 patients with adenoid cystic carcinoma in the head and neck of different localization were treated at the Department of Otolaryngology. Majority of the tumors originated of the major salivary glands was parotid gland (24 cases). The most common location among the tumor of the minor salivary glands was the palate (5 cases). The tumors arising from others mucous glands, most frequently has located in the maxillo-etmoideal complex (12 cases). The authors stress diagnostic difficulties, the necessity of a proper selection of the surgical method and postoperative radiotherapy, describing the treatment results in the patients. Radical surgical procedure of the adenoid cystic carcinoma yields optimal local control and survival rates.     

Renal cell carcinoma in a horseshoe kidney: report of two cases

We report 2 patients with renal cell carcinoma in a horseshoe kidney. A renal tumor was diagnosed during evaluation of right humeral metastatic cancer of unknown origin in case 1 (64-year-old male) and gross hematuria in case 2 (54-year-old male). Both patients underwent radical nephrectomy with division of isthmus and retroperitoneal lymph node dissection. The tumors were staged pathologically as pT2bpN0pV0pM1(oss) and pT3pN0pV1bM0, respectively. Only 27 cases of renal cell carcinoma developed in a horseshoe kidney, including the present two cases, have been reported in the Japanese literature. The blood supply to the horseshoe kidney and its evaluation by preoperative angiography were discussed.     

Renal medullary carcinoma: a potential sickle cell nephropathy of children and adolescents

cDNAs of potyviruses from Allium plants cultivated in different parts of the world were cloned by RT-PCR with a common primer for amplifying the 3' terminal genomic RNAs of onion yellow dwarf virus (OYDV), leek yellow stripe virus (LYSV) and, probably, of closely related potyviruses. Their nucleotide sequences bearing the viral coat protein (CP) gene and the 3' non-coding sequence were determined and compared. The degree of their sequence similarities clearly differentiated the respective viruses into 3 groups, namely OYDV "garlic-type", "wakegi-type" and LYSV group. The "garlic-type" included all the garlic isolates and two Indonesian shallot isolates. The "wakegi-type" group consisted of the isolates from Indonesian shallot and previously reported ones from Japanese Allium plants excluding garlic. The LYSV group was represented by LYSV isolates from garlic and leek. The CP sequences of LYSV group viruses differed from those of OYDV "garlic-type" and "wakegi-type" viruses (less than 60% similarities). In contrast, the sequence similarities between the OYDV "wakegi-type" and "garlic-type" isolates were 73.5 to 76.7%, suggesting they were closely related but should be discriminated as distinct species. These findings indicate that at least three distinct potyviruses, clearly distinguishable by the viral CP sequence, are present in Allium species. Finally, we concluded that the "garlic-type" viruses correspond to the typical OYDV and the "wakegi-type" viruses represent the viruses previously identified as Welsh onion yellow stripe virus (WoYSV) and shallot yellow stripe virus (SYSV). We propose the name wakegi yellow dwarf virus (WYDV) for the "wakegi-type" viruses.     

Squamous cell carcinoma of the pancreas with gastric metastasis. Case report

The squamous cell carcinoma of the pancreas is an uncommon form of pancreatic cancer, with a frequency in the range of 0.5-3.5%. A rare case of a primary squamous cell pancreatic carcinoma, with gastric invasion and upper digestive bleeding, requiring surgical control is reported. The surgical technique to treat the bleeding is also detailed.     

Evaluation of the diagnostic usefulness of CA125 immunoscintigraphy for ovarian carcinoma follow-up after treatment: contribution of this technique in Grenoble University Medical Center

Immunoscintigraphy using indium-111-labeled OC125 monoclonal antibody F(ab')2 fragments is a technic complementary of morphological imaging (i.e. ultrasonography and computed tomography). It allows early detection of recurrences of ovarian carcinomas. We performed immunoscintigraphy 30 times in 26 patients who previously underwent radical treatment for ovarian carcinoma, and were suspected to have a recurrence. Our purposes were appreciation of diagnostic accuracy of the method, and above all its impact on clinical decisions and evolution of the patients. There were, after reevaluation of the results, 18 true positives, 7 true negatives, 3 false negatives and 2 false positive cases (sensitivity 85.7%, specificity 77.8%). Bayesian analysis showed positive and negative predictive values of 86% and 87% when probability of recurrence a priori was 50%, and 80% and 58% when probability of recurrence a priori was 70%. The result of immunoscintigraphy contributed to clinical decisions in 24 cases out of 30, and led to a correct decision for the patient in 21 cases. Conversely, for the 6 cases in which the result has not been considered, to take this result into account would have been beneficial in 4 cases, but harmful in 2. Finally, survival tended to be longer when immunoscintigraphy was negative, which could be associated with a better prognosis. We conclude that OC125-immunoscintigraphy may be useful for ovarian carcinoma follow-up and may contribute to a better therapeutic strategy.     

Development of neurosurgery in southern California and the Los Angeles county/University of Southern California Medical Center

We reported a case of successful treatment of bilateral pulmonary metastasis from rectal cancer with high-dose 5'-DFUR plus MMC combination chemotherapy. A woman born in 1948 showed a recurrence in the bilateral lung about 29 months after low anterior resection. High-dose 5'-DFUR plus MMC combination chemotherapy was started in March, 1991. The chest X-ray examination 8 weeks after beginning this therapy showed a remarkable decrease in the size of the pulmonary metastatic foci and CEA decreased in the same way. The dose of 5'-DFUR was reduced after 5 courses, and then CEA increased. No remarkable side effect was encountered and the patient could be safely treated at an outpatient clinic. During this therapy no recurrence has been detected, and we performed a resection of the bilateral pulmonary metastasis by median sternotomy in October, 1991. The above findings suggested that this was an effective and safe therapy for pulmonary metastasis from colon cancers and could be a neo-adjuvant chemotherapy for surgical resection of pulmonary metastasis.     

Primary radiotherapy of recurrent Merkel cell carcinoma of the eyelid. Case report and review of the literature

We evaluated the prognostic value of immunostaining proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) by using a monoclonal antibody (PC10) in patients with parotid tumors. Twenty-seven cases were studied. Immunohistochemical studies were carried out on paraffin-embedded tissues from the patients, and the PCNA index was calculated as the percentage of positively staining tumor cells. The PCNA index ranged from 0.1 to 65.3%. We divided the 27 lesions into three groups histologically: group A with benign pleomorphic tumors (11 cases), group B with low-grade malignant tumors (5 cases), and group C with high-grade malignant tumors (11 cases). The mean PCNA index was 0.7% in group A, 2.0% in group B, and 23.1% in group C. The clinical data revealed a significantly higher local tumor recurrence and mortality rate in group C than in groups A and B. We conclude that PCNA may be used as an important indicator for determining clinical prognosis in parotid tumors.     

Agreement between administrative files and written medical records: a case of the Department of Veterans Affairs

OBJECTIVES: This study examined the reliability of Department of Veterans Affairs' health information databases concerning patient demographics, use of care, and diagnoses. METHODS: The Department of Veterans Affairs' Patient Treatment files for Main, Bed-section (PTF) and Outpatient Care (OCF) were compared with medical charts and administrative records (MR) for a random national sample of 1,356 outpatient visits and 414 inpatient discharges to Department of Veterans Affairs' facilities between July 1 and September 30, 1995. Records were uniformly abstracted by a focus group of utilization review nurses and medical record coders blinded to administrative file entries. RESULTS: Reliability was adequate for demographics (kappa approximately 0.92), length of stay (agreement=98%), and selected diagnoses (kappa ranged 0.39 to 1.0). Reliability was generally inadequate to identify the treating bedsection or clinic (kappa approximately 0.5). Compared with medical charts, Patient Treatment Files/Outpatient Care Files reported an additional diagnosis per discharge and 0.8 clinic stops per outpatient visit, resulting in higher estimates of disease prevalence (+39% heart disease, +19% diabetes) and outpatient costs (+36% per unique outpatient per quarter). CONCLUSIONS: In the absence of pilot work validating key data elements, investigators are advised to construct health and utilization data from multiple sources. Further validation studies of administrative files should focus on the relation between process of data capture and data validity.     

Endometrioid carcinoma arising in a scar of caesarean section. Case report

Endometriosis of a surgical scar is rare and occurs mainly when a hysterectomy has been performed in the past. Development of malignancy in such a lesion is very unusual. A rare case of primary endometrioid carcinoma in the endometriosis of a caesarean scar is described.     

Admission to the PhD program in the Department of Psychology at the University of Oregon.

Describes the graduate admissions process at the University of Oregon and presents analyses of data from over 1,000 applicants. Included in this report are some characteristics of accepted (9%) and rejected (91%) applicants and the probability of an invitation as a function of the applicant's undergraduate GPA and Graduate Record Examination scores. Some conclusions and recommendations are presented, the most important of which is a plea for the rapid development of a centralized application system for all graduate programs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)