Concomitant sclerosing mesenteritis and inflammatory pseudotumor simulating gastric lymphoma or linitis plastica

Both inflammatory pseudotumours and sclerosing (retractile) mesenteritis are uncommon conditions of unknown origin. A number of authors have reported patients presenting with complaints that were attributed to one or the other of these entities. In our review of the literature, we were unable to find a single case report of mixed abdominal findings that could be explained by the presence of both conditions. We report a case of the patient presenting with abdominal mass that was identified as having features of both sclerosing mesenteritis and inflammatory pseudotumor on pathologic diagnosis.     

Non-fluorescent Y chromosome in a male infant with Turner's symptoms and XO/XY mosaicism

A 45,X/46,XY mosaicism was found in a male infant with stigmata of Turner's syndrome but normal male external genitalia. In contrast to the Y chromosome of his father, the Y chromosome of the patient does not display either the characteristic brilliant fluorescence or the typical dark heterochromatin staining of the distal long arm. Furthermore, DNA replication in the abnormal Y chromosome was shown to be premature. Mechanisms leading to the observed abnormalities are discussed.     

The combination of ionizing radiation and peripheral vaccination produces long-term survival of mice bearing established invasive GL261 gliomas.

PURPOSE: High-grade glioma treatment includes ionizing radiation therapy. The high invasiveness of glioma cells precludes their eradication and is responsible for the dismal prognosis. Recently, we reported the down-regulation of MHC class I (MHC-I) products in invading tumor cells in human and mouse GL261 gliomas. Here, we tested the hypothesis that whole-brain radiotherapy (WBRT) up-regulates MHC-I expression on GL261 tumors and enhances the effectiveness of immunotherapy. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: MHC-I molecule expression on GL261 cells was analyzed in vitro and in vivo by flow cytometry and immunohistochemistry, respectively. To test the response of established GL261 gliomas to treatment, mice with measurable (at CT imaging) brain tumors were randomly assigned to four groups receiving (a) no treatment, (b) WBRT in two fractions of 4 Gy, (c) vaccination with irradiated GL261 cells secreting granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor, or (d) WBRT and vaccination. Endpoints were tumor response and survival. RESULTS: An ionizing radiation dose of 4 Gy maximally up-regulated MHC-I molecules on GL261 cells in vitro. In vivo, WBRT induced the expression of the beta2-microglobulin light chain subunit of the MHC class I complex on glioma cells invading normal brain and increased CD4+ and CD8+ T cell infiltration. However, the survival advantage obtained with WBRT or vaccination alone was minimal. In contrast, WBRT in combination with vaccination increased long-term survival to 40% to 80%, compared with 0% to 10% in the other groups (P < 0.002). Surviving animals showed antitumor immunity by rejecting challenge tumors. CONCLUSION: Ionizing radiation can be successfully combined with peripheral vaccination for the treatment of established high-grade gliomas.     

Hyperlipidemia Impairs Osteoanabolic Effects of PTH

Epidemiological and in vitro studies have suggested that hyperlipidemia/oxidized phospholipids adversely affect bone. We recently found that oxidized phospholipids attenuate PTH‐induced cAMP and immediate‐early gene (IEG) expression in MC3T3‐E1 cells, raising concerns that clinical hyperlipidemia may attenuate osteoanabolic effects of PTH in vivo. Thus, we studied whether intermittent PTH treatment has differential osteoanabolic effects in wildtype (C57BL/6) and hyperlipidemic (LDLR^?/?) mice. Consistent with our previous in vitro studies, induction of IEGs in calvarial tissue, 45 min after a single dose of recombinant hPTH(1‐34), was attenuated in LDLR^?/? mice compared with C57BL/6 mice. Daily hPTH(1‐34) injections for 5 wk significantly increased total and cortical BMD and BMC, assessed by pQCT, in C57BL/6 mice. However, this induction was completely abrogated in LDLR^?/? mice. Similarly, PTH(1‐34) failed to increase BMD in another hyperlipidemic mouse model, ApoE^?/? mice. Histomorphometric analysis showed that trabecular bone of both mice responded similarly to PTH(1‐34). Structural parameters improved significantly in response to PTH(1‐34) in both mouse strains, although to a lesser degree in LDLR^?/? mice. With PTH(1‐34) treatment, osteoblast surface trended toward an increase in C57BL/6 mice and increased significantly in LDLR^?/? mice. PTH(1‐34) did not alter resorption parameters significantly, except for the eroded surface (ES/BS), which was reduced in the C57BL/6 but not in the LDLR^?/? mice. These results show that PTH(1‐34) has adverse effects on cortical bones of the hyperlipidemic mice, suggesting that the therapeutic effects of PTH may be compromised in the presence of hyperlipidemia.     

Natural history of human papillomavirus type 16 virus-like particle antibodies in young women.

Immunization with a vaccine of human papillomavirus (HPV) type 16 virus-like particles (VLPs) can reduce incidence of HPV-16 infection and its related cervical intraepithelial neoplasia. However, development of detectable antibodies to VLPs does not always occur after natural HPV infection. This study examined prospectively for seroconversion and duration of antibodies to HPV-16 VLPs and their associated host and viral factors. Six-hundred eight subjects were tested for HPV DNA biannually and for IgG and IgA antibodies to HPV-16 VLPs annually for 3 years. Both IgG and IgA antibodies to HPV-16 VLPs were predominantly type specific. Women with cervicovaginal HPV-16 infection were 8-10 times more likely to seroconvert than those with infection of HPV-16-related types. Among subjects who had an incident infection with HPV-16, a maximum of 56.7% became seropositive for IgG within 8.3 months and 37.0% had IgA within 14 months. Detectable seroconversion was a slow process that required sufficient antigenic exposure associated with either a high viral load (relative risk = 5.7 for IgG) or persistent infection of HPV-16 (relative risk = 3.4 for IgA). The median duration for both types of antibodies was approximately 36 months. Antibodies could persist for a long period of time if the initial antibody levels were high or if there was continued antigenic exposure.     

Aging and speech-on-speech masking

OBJECTIVES: A common complaint of many older adults is difficulty communicating in situations where they must focus on one talker in the presence of other people speaking. In listening environments containing multiple talkers, age-related changes may be caused by increased sensitivity to energetic masking, increased susceptibility to informational masking (e.g., confusion between the target voice and masking voices), and/or cognitive deficits. The purpose of the present study was to tease out these contributions to the difficulties that older adults experience in speech-on-speech masking situations. DESIGN: Groups of younger, normal-hearing individuals and older adults with varying degrees of hearing sensitivity (n = 12 per group) participated in a study of sentence recognition in the presence of four types of maskers: a two-talker masker consisting of voices of the same sex as the target voice, a two-talker masker of voices of the opposite sex as the target, a signal-envelope-modulated noise derived from the two-talker complex, and a speech-shaped steady noise. Subjects also completed a voice discrimination task to determine the extent to which they were able to incidentally learn to tell apart the target voice from the same-sex masking voices and to examine whether this ability influenced speech-on-speech masking. RESULTS: Results showed that older adults had significantly poorer performance in the presence of all four types of maskers, with the largest absolute difference for the same-sex masking condition. When the data were analyzed in terms of relative group differences (i.e., adjusting for absolute performance) the greatest effect was found for the opposite-sex masker. Degree of hearing loss was significantly related to performance in several listening conditions. Some older subjects demonstrated a reduced ability to discriminate between the masking and target voices; performance on this task was not related to speech recognition ability. CONCLUSIONS: The overall pattern of results suggests that although amount of informational masking does not seem to differ between older and younger listeners, older adults (particularly those with hearing loss) evidence a deficit in the ability to selectively attend to a target voice, even when the masking voices are from talkers of the opposite sex. Possible explanations for these findings include problems understanding speech in the presence of a masker with temporal and spectral fluctuations and/or age-related changes in cognitive function.     

Population genetic data and forensic parameters of the 27 Y-STR panel Yfiler® Plus in Russian population

International Journal of Legal Medicine - This is the first report of a nation-wide study of the 27-STR Yfiler® Plus panel in the population of the Russian Federation. A total of 691 unrelated...     

The effect of health on labour supply in nine former Soviet Union countries

This paper examines for the first time the consequences of ill health on labour supply for a sample of nine countries from the former Soviet Union (FSU), using a unique multicountry household survey specifically designed for this region. We control for a wide range of individual, household, and community factors, using both standard regression techniques and instrumental variable estimation to address potential endogeneity. Specifically, we find in our baseline ordinary least squares specification that poor health is associated with a decrease in the probability of working of about 13 %. Controlling for community-level unobserved variables slightly increases the magnitude of this effect, to about 14 %. Controlling for endogeneity with the instrumental variable approach further supports this finding, with the magnitude of the effect ranging from 12 to 35 %. Taken together, our findings confirm the cost that the still considerable adult health burden in the FSU is imposing on its population, not only in terms of the disease burden itself, but also in terms of individuals’ labour market participation, as well as potentially in terms of increased poverty risk. Other things being equal, this would increase the expected “return on investment” to be had from interventions aimed at improving health in this region.