We have experienced a case of suprasellar germinoma metastasized to the lumbar spinal canal. A 22-year-old man was admitted to St. Mary's Hospital May, 1975 with complaints of low back pain, progressive weakness of both lower extremities and voiding difficulty for about one month. About 7 months ago he received craniotomy and irradiation therapy for suprasellar germinoma. Neurological examination revealed foot drop on the left side with sensory change and atonic neurogenic bladder. Pantopaque myelogram showed a total block at the level of the 3 rd lumbar vertebra suggestive an epidural mass compressing dural sac posteriolaterally. Total laminectomy of lumbar first to fifth vertebrae disclosed a firm, rubbery hard and vascular mass in the epidural space, which was not adherent to the dura. Histological examination of the tumor revealed typical germinoma. Pathogenesis of geminoma and possible mode of epidural metastasis are discussed.
Craniotomy ; Epidural Space* ; Foot ; Germinoma* ; Humans ; Iophendylate ; Laminectomy ; Low Back Pain ; Lower Extremity ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Neurologic Examination ; Spinal Canal* ; Spine ; Urinary Bladder, Neurogenic ; Young Adult

Intracranial tumor with extracranial metastasis has been seldom reported. A 28 year-old-male was admitted to Presbyterian Hospital in Daegu on May 9, 1977. Who was diagnosed to have a medulloblastoma in the right cerebellar hemisphere with metastases to the right axillary lymphnode and head of pancreas by pathological reports. In generally medulloblastoma with extracranial metastasis occurs very rarely in the cerebellar hemisphere, and especially in adulthood. Distant metastasis of the intracranial tumor is discussed with review of the literatures.
Daegu ; Head ; Medulloblastoma* ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Pancreas ; Protestantism

No abstract available.

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No abstract available.
Exostoses, Multiple Hereditary* ; Sarcoma, Synovial*

No abstract available.
Inlays* ; Transplants*

A case-control study was conducted to investigate the association between the risk of cancer and selenium concentration in blood and toenails. Seventy three patients and two hundreds eighty three controls were selected at the Yeungnam University Hospital between May and September in 1991. The selected cases were patients who had been hospitalized for stomach or colon cancer at the Department of General Surgery. The controls were people who visited to check physical examination at the Automated Mediscreening Center. The selenium concentration in whole blood and toenails were measured by atomic absorption spectrophotometer equipped with graphite furnace atomizer. The following information was ascertained for all cancer patients and controls: sex, age, body mass index, blood pressure, total serum cholesterol, and history of smoking and drinking. The mean selenium concentration in blood and toenail for all cancer patients were 143.6±10.8 µg/l and 1.04±0.62 µg/g and for the controls. 167.0±14.5 µg/l and 1.15±0.55 µg/g, respectively. The difference in blood and toenail selenium concentrations of the two cancer sites was not statistically significant. Metastasis did not influence the concentration of selenium in blood and toenails. In the multiple logistic regression analysis, the blood selenium concentration (aOR: 0.888, 95% CI: 0.860-0.918), age, BMI and total serum cholesterol were significant variables for risk of cancer, but the selenium concentration in toenail was not shown to be a significant variable in this regression analysis. The coefficient for blood selenium concentration adjusted for age, sex, diastolic blood pressure, total serum cholesterol, body mass index and smoking was -0.1184 (p<0.01). These findings suggest that low selenium concentration is associated with gastrointestinal cancers. Further epidemiologic studies including important variables such as other antioxidant micronutrients will be necessary.
Absorption ; Blood Pressure ; Body Mass Index ; Case-Control Studies ; Cholesterol ; Colonic Neoplasms ; Drinking ; Epidemiologic Studies ; Gastrointestinal Neoplasms ; Graphite ; Humans ; Logistic Models ; Micronutrients ; Nails* ; Nebulizers and Vaporizers ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Physical Examination ; Selenium* ; Smoke ; Smoking ; Stomach

Glucocorticoids, dexamethasone, 6 alpha-methylprednisolone are routinely administered to brain tumor patients to reduce peritumoral edema before surgical removal of the tumor. In addition, the glucocorticoids can inhibit growth of several cell lines. Retinoic acid, a derivative of vitamin A is also known to inhibit growth of several cell lines. Sometimes inhibition of growth accompany morphological changes. In the present study, we compared the effects of dexamethasone, 6 alpha-methylprednisolone, and retinoic acid on the growth and on the morphology of a rat glioma cell line, C6. We found that all of them can maximally inhibit the growth of C6 by approximately 30%(p<0.0025) in the presence of 10 microM of either dexamethasone, 6 alpha-methylprednisolone or retinoic acid under our experimental conditions. However, only retinoic acid could induce the morphological changes of C6 at the concentrations over 1 microM concentration, which was elongation of the cells. The morphological changes were observed both at the subconfluent and confluent cell population. When mixture of 10 microM of dexamethasone and 10 microM of retinoic acid was added, no further increase in the inhibition of growth was observed compared with the inhibition obtained by adding 10 microM of dexamethasone only. The results suggest that the glucocorticoids might have effedts of growth inhibition of the glial tumor in vivo.
Animals ; Brain Neoplasms ; Cell Line* ; Dexamethasone* ; Edema ; Glioma* ; Glucocorticoids ; Humans ; Rats* ; Tretinoin* ; Vitamin A

Spontaneous spinal epidural hematoma is a rare cause of spinal cord compression. Recently, at our hospital, the author et al had the opportunity of observing case with spontaneous cervical epidural hematoma in a 28 years old woman who had suddenly felt a strong pain in interscapular area. Rapidly after she noticed weakness in her legs and one day later she was completely paraplegia. The MRI of spine was done. There show tubular like low signal intensity at posterior epidural space of C7 level and ghigh signal intensity of cord at C7 level due to cord compression effect. In this article, we are adding one more rare case of spontaneous cervical spinal epidural hematoma confirmed by MRI.
Adult ; Epidural Space ; Female ; Hematoma ; Hematoma, Epidural, Spinal* ; Humans ; Laminectomy ; Leg ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Paraplegia ; Spinal Cord Compression ; Spine