A leg ulcer as manifestation of metastatic squamous cell vaginal carcinoma

Cutaneous metastasis of vaginal carcinoma is extremely rare. So far, the total number of reported skin metastasis of vaginal carcinoma is only one. We present another case with an unusual manifestation of vagina carcinoma metastasis: skin metastasis presenting as a leg ulcer on the lower leg.     

Localization of a gene for otosclerosis to chromosome 15q25-q26

Among white adults otosclerosis is the single most common cause of hearing impairment. Although the genetics of this disease are controversial, the majority of studies indicate autosomal dominant inheritance with reduced penetrance. We studied a large multi- generational family in which otosclerosis has been inherited in an autosomal dominant pattern. Five of16 affected persons have surgically confirmed otosclerosis; the remaining nine have a conductive hearing loss but have not undergone corrective surgery. To locate the disease- causing gene we completed genetic linkage analysis using short tandem repeat polymorphisms (STRPs) distributed over the entire genome. Multipoint linkage analysis showed that only one genomic region, on chromosome 15q, generated a lod score >2.0. Additional STRPs were typed in this area, resulting in a lod score of 3.4. STRPs FES (centromeric) and D15S657 (telomeric) flank the 14. 5 cM region that contains an otosclerosis gene.      

The Complete Set of Predicted Genes from Saccharomyces cerevisiae in a Readily Usable Form

Nearly all of the open reading frames (ORFs) of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae have been synthesized by PCR using a set of ~6000 primer pairs. Each of the forward primers has a common 22-base sequence at its 5′ end, and each of the back primers has a common 20-base sequence at its 5′ end. These common termini allow reamplification of the entire set of original PCR products using a single pair of longer primers—in our case, 70 bases. The resulting 70-base elements that flank each ORF can be used for rapid and efficient cloning into a linearized yeast vector that contains these same elements at its termini. This cloning by genetic recombination obviates the need for ligations or bacterial manipulations and should permit convenient global approaches to gene function that require the assay of each putative yeast gene.     

Peritoneal fluid concentrations of interleukin-8 in women with endometriosis: relationship to stage of disease

There is increasing evidence that immunological mechanisms play a role in the pathogenesis and pathophysiology of endometriosis. It was therefore of interest to study interleukin-8 (IL-8), a chemokine, in the peritoneal fluid and peripheral blood of women undergoing laparoscopic procedures. The presence and concentrations of IL-8 in relation to endometriosis, infertility and abdominal pain were evaluated. Samples of peritoneal fluid (n = 49) and peripheral blood (n = 50) were obtained from 50 consecutive patients undergoing laparoscopic surgery for various gynaecological indications (abdominal pain, infertility, sterilization). IL-8 was present in the peritoneal fluid of most women (87%). The concentration of IL-8 in the peritoneal fluid was higher in women with endometriosis compared to women without (P = 0.02). This difference was more pronounced in early (stage 1) endometriosis (P = 0.001). IL-8 concentrations in the peritoneal fluid were also higher in women with early endometriosis compared to women with later stages of the disease (P = 0.003). Peripheral blood concentrations did not correlate with peritoneal fluid concentrations of IL-8 and/or the presence of endometriosis. We conclude that IL-8 is an important factor that may contribute to the pathogenesis of endometriosis possibly by promoting neovascularization. This information can be a guide in the development of new therapeutic approaches for the treatment of endometriosis.      

Rewarding effectiveness of caudal MFB stimulation is unaltered following DMH lesions.

The dorsomedial hypothalamus (DMH) has been proposed to be a major part of the neural substrate for self-stimulation of the medial forebrain bundle (MFB). In this report, rate-frequency and rate-current curves were collected from 19 rats with lesions in or around the DMH and stimulation electrodes in or near the caudal MFB. Thirteen rats with lesions of the DMH showed little or no postlesion change in the rewarding effectiveness of caudomedial MFB stimulation. Six other lesions, affecting the anterior, dorsal, and/or ventromedial hypothalamus, were also ineffective in changing rewarding effectiveness. The one lesion that was followed by a substantial decrease in rewarding effectiveness, invaded the medial MFB at the level of the lateral hypothalamus but produced little DMH damage. These data do not support the notion that neurons arising in, terminating in, or projecting through the DMH play an important role in MFB self-stimulation.     

Cone beam volume CT image artifacts caused by defective cells in x-ray flat panel imagers and the artifact removal using a wavelet-analysis-based algorithm

The application of x-ray flat panel imagers (FPIs) in cone beam volume CT (CBVCT) has attracted increasing attention. However, due to a deficient semiconductor array manufacturing process, defective cells unavoidably exist in x-ray FPIs. These defective cells cause their corresponding image pixels in a projection image to behave abnormally in signal gray level, and result in severe streak and ring artifacts in a CBVCT image reconstructed from the projection images. Since a three-dimensional (3-D) back-projection is involved in CBVCT, the formation of the streak and ring artifacts is different from that in the two-dimensional (2-D) fan beam CT. In this paper, a geometric analysis of the abnormality propagation in the 3D back-projection is presented, and the morphology of the streak and ring artifacts caused by the abnormality propagation is investigated through both computer simulation and phantom studies. In order to calibrate those artifacts, a 2D wavelet-analysis-based statistical approach to correct the abnormal pixels is proposed. The approach consists of three steps: (1) the location-invariant defective cells in an x-ray FPI are recognized by applying 2-D wavelet analysis on flat-field images, and a comprehensive defective cell template is acquired; (2) based upon the template, the abnormal signal gray level of the projection image pixels corresponding to the location-invariant defective cells is replaced with the interpolation of that of their normal neighbor pixels; (3) that corresponding to the isolated location-variant defective cells are corrected using a narrow-windowed median filter. The CBVCT images of a CT low-contrast phantom are employed to evaluate this proposed approach, showing that the streak and ring artifacts can be reliably eliminated. The novelty and merit of the approach are the incorporation of the wavelet analysis whose intrinsic multi-resolution analysis and localizability make the recognition algorithm robust under variable x-ray exposure levels between 30% and 70% of the dynamic range of an x-ray FPI.