Percutaneous isolated liver perfusion for treatment of hepatic malignancy: preliminary report.

Chemotherapy for primary or metastatic hepatic malignancy is limited by poor tumor response and dose-related systemic toxicity. As an alternative to chemotherapy infusion by vein or by the hepatic artery, the authors have developed a percutaneous technique of isolated liver perfusion that allows the regional delivery of high-dose chemotherapy to the liver with little systemic toxicity. After placement of a hepatic artery infusion catheter, an 18-F double-balloon catheter is placed into the inferior vena cava through the opposite femoral vein. Balloons are inflated above and below the hepatic veins, thus isolating hepatic venous outflow. The effluent passes through fenestrations in the catheter and is pumped through charcoal hemoperfusion filters where the drug is removed. The filtered blood is returned to the patient through the internal jugular vein. Fifteen treatments have been conducted in eight patients in a phase I dose-escalation study with use of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). While it is premature to assess tumor response to isolated liver perfusion, the data demonstrate that the procedure is safe and is tolerated by patients. Pharmacokinetic studies show a 5-FU extraction of up to 85%, with minimal drug leakage into the systemic circulation. This technique shows potential for improving liver tumor response while decreasing systemic toxicity.     

Genetic characterization of immortalized human prostate epithelial cell cultures. Evidence for structural rearrangements of chromosome 8 and i(8q) chromosome formation in primary tumor-derived cells

We have utilized a combination of conventional and spectral karyotyping (SKY) techniques and allelotype analysis to assess numerical and structural chromosome alterations in two cell lines derived from normal human prostatic epithelium, and three cell lines derived from human prostate primary tumor epithelium, immortalized with the E6 and E7 transforming genes of human papilloma virus (HPV) 16 or the large T-antigen gene of simian virus 40 (SV40). These studies revealed trisomy for chromosome 20 and rearrangements involving chromosomes 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, or 22. In addition, the four HPV-immortalized cell lines exhibited extensive duplications or translocations involving the 11q chromosomal region. Interestingly, allelotyping data disclosed loss of 8p sequences in two of the three primary tumor-derived cell lines, and SKY data revealed that the loss of 8p sequences was directly due to i(8q) chromosome formation and/or other structural alterations of chromosome 8. This provides intriguing evidence that 8p loss in primary human prostate tumors may, in some cases, result from complex structural rearrangements involving chromosome 8. Moreover, the data reported here provide direct evidence that such complex structural rearrangements sometimes include i(8q) chromosome formation.     

Associated coronary anomalies in 135 Iranian patients with tetralogy of Fallot

Coronary artery anomalies are common among patients with tetralogy of Fallot. One hundred and thirty-five patients (80 males and 55 females) with tetralogy of Fallot who underwent repair between 1995 and 2002 were studied to determine the incidence of coronary anomalies in Iranian patients. Eight (5.9%) patients (4 males and 4 females) had a surgically relevant coronary artery anomaly: single coronary ostium in 5, origin of the left anterior descending artery from the right coronary artery in 2, and origin of the right coronary artery from the left coronary artery in 1. The surgical technique in 3 of these patients was repair of the ventricular septal defect with a transverse incision on the right ventricle, without damage to the coronary arteries. In another patient, an allograft aortic valve cylinder was inserted. In the other 4 patients with a single coronary ostium, placement of a limited transannular patch was adequate. Consideration of these anomalies during primary repair could decrease the risk of operation in such patients. However, it seems that the presence of anomalous coronary arteries does not affect incremental risk after surgical repair.     

Patch‐wise brain age longitudinal reliability

We recently introduced a patch‐wise technique to estimate brain age from anatomical T1‐weighted magnetic resonance imaging (T1w MRI) data. Here, we sought to assess its longitudinal reliability by leveraging a unique dataset of 99 longitudinal MRI scans from a single, cognitively healthy volunteer acquired over a period of 17 years (aged 29–46 years) at multiple sites. We built a robust patch‐wise brain age estimation framework on the basis of 100 cognitively healthy individuals from the MindBoggle dataset (aged 19–61 years) using the Desikan‐Killiany‐Tourville atlas, then applied the model to the volunteer dataset. The results show a high prediction accuracy on the independent test set (R² = .94, mean absolute error of 0.63 years) and no statistically significant difference between manufacturers, suggesting that the patch‐wise technique has high reliability and can be used for longitudinal multi‐centric studies.     

Cutaneous leishmaniasis: what about a new,inexpensive, effective,topical herbal remedy?

Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) remains an important disease and public health problem in many parts around the world especially in the Middle East. In the absence of adequate treatment, the lesion could become chronic and disfiguring. We report on three cases with chronic CL lesions that were successfully treated with topical application of a new herbal mixture named "Z-HE". It is clearly demonstrated that this inexpensive, simple, effective and non toxic topical drug has a promising curative role in the treatment of CL.