No abstract

Although a prospective study with large sample size is warranted, serum EGFR extracellular domain may be potentially useful as a biological marker of gliomas for prediction of prognosis and follow-up after treatment.

Eosinophilic leukocytes may accompany a great variety of disorders and different types of acute leukemias. The most striking morphologic feature of eosinophils is their specific granules, but morphology alone often is insufficient to differentiate normal from abnormal eosinophils. Cytochemically, the eosinophils were considered "normal" when they did not contain alkaline phosphatase, chloroacetate esterase, toluidine blue metachromasia, Astra blue positivity, and specific PAS-positive granules, but did have peroxidase and cyanide-resistant peroxidase activities, Sudan black positivity and moderate naphthol-AS esterase or alpha-naphthyl esterase and acid phosphatase positivities. In seven cases of acute leukemias (two acute myeloblastic and five myelomonocytic), in contrast with their normal behaviour, the eosinophils show "abnormal" cytochemical positivities consisting of chloroesterase activity, PAS and Astra blue positivities of the specific granules, toluidine blue metachromasia, and cyanide-resistant peroxidase of a few specific granules. Cytochemical investigations may provide additional criteria for evaluating the abnormality of the eosinophilic cell in leukemias.

Five cases of acute promyelocytic leukaemia (A.P.L.) are investigated for peroxidase, PAS, toluidine blue, astra blue, alpha-naphthyl esterase, double esterase incubation (naphthol-AS plus naphthol-AS-D chloroesterase), and cellular lysozyme activity. These cytochemical investigations may contribute further characterization of the morphologic type.

Abstract. The labelling index (LI) of myelocytes (M) after flash labelling of normal human bone marrow cells with [3H]‐thymidine ([3H]TdR) is always lower that the LI obtained for myeloblasts (MB) and for promyelocytes (PM). This fact can be interpreted in two ways: it may mean that the duration of the G1 phase of the cell cycle is longer in M than in MB or PM, or it may mean that the proportion of cells in cycle, i.e., the growth fraction (GF), is lower in the M population than in MB or PM. the evolution of the LI and of the mean number of grains per cell was monitored in [3H]TdR‐labelled normal bone marrow during in vitro incubation for 50 hr. the generation time, measured by the halving time of the mean number of grains per cell after flash labelling, was similar for M to that for MB and PM. During continuous labelling, the LI of MB and PM reached 1 and the LI value for M never rose to more than 50% of the values recorded for MB and PM after 30 hr. These findings give support to the second hypothesis, i.e., a lower GF in the M population. Good correlation was found between the LI of M and the proportion of mature polymorphonuclear cells in the bone marrow of normal subjects and of patients with chronic benign neutropenia or hyperleucocytosis. Variations in the M growth fraction could be a medium‐term (2‐3 days) regulatory factor in granulocyte production.

There are few cases described in the world literature reporting an association of thymoma (with myasthenia gravis or not) with hyperparathyroidism. In these cases the hyperparathyroidism was due to the presence of an adenoma or hyperplasic parathyroid tissue either in the cervical region or in an ectopic intrathymic location.(12345) In other cases the syndrome of hypercalcemia was due to the secretion of parathyroid-related protein (PTHRP) (6) or parathyroid hormone (PTH) (7) by the thymoma itself. We report the first case, at the best of our knowledge, of a wide invasive malignant thymoma (type B3), associated with myasthenia gravis and hyperparathyroidism caused by parathyroid adenoma.

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The aim of this study is to identify protective and risk factors related to the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on a sample of survivors from a single plane crash. Eighteen survivors were examined 6 months following the event. The subjects all underwent psychiatric interviews, Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale structured interviews, personality and cognitive tests. Only 38.9% of them presented with all of the symptoms of PTSD; 22.2% showed no symptoms for PTSD; remaining survivors exhibited emotional/affective symptoms related to the event. In addition to the severity of the traumatic event itself, other risk factors identified were the loss of a relative, the manifestation of depressive symptoms, and the severity of physical injuries sustained. Low levels of hostility and high levels of self-efficacy represented protective factors against developing PTSD.