Dental trauma that require fixation in a children's hospital.

Children and adolescents who suffer traumatic injuries often seek emergency treatment at a Children's Hospital. Complex injuries to permanent teeth and their periodontium require immediate repositioning and stabilization. Many of these emergencies are treated by pediatric dental residents at the Women and Children's Hospital of Buffalo, Buffalo, New York. The purpose of this study was to characterize these complex injuries of permanent teeth that require emergency treatment in a Children's Hospital. All of the cases of dental trauma which had involved permanent teeth and which had been treated with a splint in 2001 and 2002 were reviewed. There were 79 patients that were between 5 and 19 years of age with twice as many males (54) as females (25). The number of males increased from childhood (5-10 years) to early adolescence (11-15 years) and then decreased rapidly in late adolescence (16-19 years), whereas the number of females decreased steadily with age. Most of the incidents occurred during the summer months (72%), particularly in June and July (42%), and Fridays and Saturdays were the busiest days of the week. Most of the injuries were caused by organized and recreational sporting activities (39%) and accidental falls (33%), followed by interpersonal violence (15%) and a few motor vehicle accidents (7%). The 173 permanent tooth injuries were mostly luxations (62%) or avulsions (20%), with only a few fractures of the alveolar bone (5%) or tooth root (1%). Most of the displacements were lateral luxations (40%) or extrusions (18%) with only a few intrusions (3%). These injuries most commonly afflicted the maxillary central incisors (54%), followed by the maxillary laterals (18%) and mandibular centrals (17%). The emergency treatment that was provided at the Children's Hospital included replantation and repositioning, and the placement of a semi-rigid or flexible splint.     

Echogenic Appearance of Colorectal Liver Metastases on Intraoperative Ultrasonography is Associated with Survival After Hepatic Resection

Survival after resection of colorectal liver metastases has traditionally been associated with clinicopathologic factors. We sought to investigate whether echogenicity of colorectal liver metastasis as assessed by intraoperative ultrasound (IOUS) was a prognostic factor after hepatic resection. Prospective data on tumor IOUS appearance were collected in 84 patients who underwent hepatic resection for colorectal liver metastasis. Images were digitally recorded, blindly reviewed, and scored for echogenicity (hypo-, iso-, or hyperechoic). The median tumor number was 1 and the median tumor size was 5.0 cm. At the time of surgery, the IOUS appearance of the colorectal liver metastases were hypoechoic in 35 (41.7%) patients, isoechoic in 37 (44.0%) patients, and hyperechoic in 12 (14.3%) patients. Traditional clinicopathologic prognostic factors were similarly distributed among the three echogenicity groups (all p > 0.05). Patients with a hypoechoic lesion had a significantly shorter median survival (30.2 months) compared with patients who had either an isoechoic (53.2 months) or hyperechoic (42.3 months) lesion (p = 0.005). The 5-year survival after hepatic resection of colorectal liver metastasis was also associated with the echogenic appearance of the lesion (hypoechoic 14.4 vs isoechoic 37.4 vs hyperechoic 46.2%) (p < 0.05). Intraoperative ultrasound echogenicity should be considered a prognostic factor after hepatic resection of metastatic colorectal cancer. This study was presented at the 47th annual meeting of The Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 22 May 2006.     

Comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) of augmentation cystoplasties

OBJECTIVE: Tumors arising within augmentation cystoplasties are aggressive, have poor prognosis and the majority are not detected at follow-up cystoscopy. Genetic changes in tumors precede morphological abnormalities. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate whether genetic abnormalities detected by comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) could be used to identify those patients with augmentation cystoplasties at increased risk of tumorigenesis. METHODS: Bladder biopsy samples were obtained from 16 augmentation cystoplasty patients both distant from and near to the enterovesical anastomosis. CGH was used to detect genetic abnormalities in DNA extracted from the biopsies, archival specimens of two augmentation cystoplasties and two de novo bladder adenocarcinomas. RESULTS: A greater number of amplifications on 2p, 3q, 8q, 9p, 17p, 18pq and 20pq, were observed in bladder biopsies obtained near to the enterovesical anastomosis compared to those taken distant to the suture line. CGH of archival augmentation cystoplasty tumor DNA indicated abnormalities at several loci with amplifications at 2q, 5q, 10p and 21pq, while deletions occurred at 5p and 16p. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study suggest that the urothelium adjacent to the bladder and/or bowel anastomosis in augmentation cystoplasties is genetically unstable. Furthermore, longitudinal studies are required to establish whether or not patients exhibiting genetic instability following augmentation cystoplasty are at greater risk of developing tumors than those with genetically stable epithelia.     

Guidelines for Trials of Behavioral Treatments for Recurrent Headache, First Edition: American Headache Society Behavioral Clinical Trials Workgroup

Guidelines for design of clinical trials evaluating behavioral headache treatments were developed to facilitate production of quality research evaluating behavioral therapies for management of primary headache disorders. These guidelines were produced by a Workgroup of headache researchers under auspices of the American Headache Society. The guidelines are complementary to and modeled after guidelines for pharmacological trials published by the International Headache Society, but they address methodologic considerations unique to behavioral and other nonpharmacological treatments. Explicit guidelines for evaluating behavioral headache therapies are needed as the optimal methodology for behavioral (and other nonpharmacologic) trials necessarily differs from the preferred methodology for drug trials. In addition, trials comparing and integrating drug and behavioral therapies present methodological challenges not addressed by guidelines for pharmacologic research. These guidelines address patient selection, trial design for behavioral treatments and for comparisons across multiple treatment modalities (eg, behavioral vs pharmacologic), evaluation of results, and research ethics. Although developed specifically for behavioral therapies, the guidelines may apply to the design of clinical trials evaluating many forms of nonpharmacologic therapies for headache.     

Hypoplasia of the cerebellar vermis in neurogenetic syndromes

There are conflicting reports on the relationship between cerebellar vermal lobule hypoplasia and autism. Using quantitative magnetic resonance image analysis, we measured the cerebellar vermis in 125 normal individuals with a broad age range and 102 patients with a variety of neurogenetic abnormalities. We conclude that hypoplasia of cerebellar vermal lobules VI and VII is a nonspecific finding that even occurs in several conditions without autistic behavior. This suggests that it is not a specific neuroanatomical marker for autism, nor is cerebellar dys- genesis likely to be solely responsible for clinical autistic behaviors.     

New leupeptin analogues: synthesis and inhibition data

Syntheses of several tripeptide analogues of leupeptin containing C-terminal argininal, lysinal, or ornithinal units are presented. The synthetic analogues were tested as inhibitors of trypsin, plasmin, and kallikrein. (Benzyloxycarbonyl)-L-leucyl-L-leucyl-L-argininal (2a) was significantly less effective as an inhibitor of trypsin and plasmin activity than leupeptin. (Benzyloxycarbonyl)-L-leucyl-L-leucyl-L-lysinal (2e) and (benzyloxycarbonyl)-L-leucyl-L-leucyl-L-ornithinal (2i) display different inhibition characteristics than (benzyloxycarbonyl)-L-leucyl-L-leucyl-L-argininal (2a). While (benzyloxycarbonyl)-L-leucyl-L-leucyl-L-argininal (2a) showed moderate inhibition of all three enzymes tested, (benzyloxycarbonyl)-L-leucyl-L-leucyl-L-lysinal (2e) was less effective as an inhibitor of trypsin and plasmin activity. Of the three enzymes tested, (benzyloxycarbonyl)-L-leucyl-L-leucyl-L-ornithinal (2i) showed significant inhibition of kallikrein activity only. Modifications made in the composition and sequence of the P2 and P3 amino acids also resulted in variations in the inhibitory activity of the analogues. In general, plasmin showed a strong preference for inhibitors which contain an L-phenylalanyl-L-leucyl or an L-leucyl-L-valyl unit in the P2 and P3 positions.