No abstract available.
Meningitis*

Emphysematous pyelonephritis is a rare, life-endangering suppurative infection of the renal parenchyma and perirenal tissues. The disease is encountered mainly in the diabetic patient with or without ureteral obstruction and is characterized by the production of intrarenal and occasionally, perirenal gas. We report a case of emphysematous pyelonephritis, treated by left nephrectomy, in 55-year-old diabetic woman.
Female ; Humans ; Middle Aged ; Nephrectomy ; Pyelonephritis* ; Ureteral Obstruction

No abstract available.
Holoprosencephaly*

No abstract available.
Cardiac Catheterization* ; Cardiac Catheters* ; Child* ; Cineangiography* ; Heart Diseases* ; Heart* ; Humans ; Statistics as Topic*

No abstract available.
Agenesis of Corpus Callosum*

No abstract available.
Lymphadenitis*

BACKGROUND: We observed airway remodeling, which is the thickness of the susepithelial layer, in asthmatic patients and inhealthy subjects in order to determine its relationship with severity of disease, such as symptom, bronchial hyperresponsiveness, and degree of acute exacerbation. Moreover, for evaluation of factors contributing to airway remodeling, we analyzed the age, sex, presence of atopy, length of asthmatic history and degree of airway inflammation. METHODS: Thirty-six patients with asthma and ten healthy controls were recruited for the study. The degree of asthma symptom severity was assessed using NIH criteria. Bronchial responsiveness to methacholine was expressed as provocative concentration of methacholine causing a 20% fall in FEV1. The degree of acute exacerbation was assessed by PaCO2 during acute exacerbation. Bronchoscopy, bronchoalveolar lavage(BAL), and bronchial biopsy were performed for all subjects; the total cell counts, differential cell counts and levels of ECP were measured in BAL fluid, and the basement membrane thickness and degree of epithelial shedding were measured in biopsy samples under light microscopy. RESULTS: The mean values of basement membrane thickness were 7.8+/-0.6 micrometer in asthmatics, and 4.1+/-0.5 micrometer in healthy subjects (p<0.05). Basement membrane thickness in patients with severe persistent asthma differed significantly from that of patients with mild intermittent asthma (11.8+/-1.0 micrometer vs 6.5+/-0.7 micrometer p<0.05). A lower level of PC20 for methacholine was observed in asthma with thick basement membrane(> or =7.5 micrometer) compared to those with base- ment membrane less than 7.5micrometer (0.26+/-0.13 mg/ml vs. 0.74+/-0.16 mg/ml, p<0.05). No difference was found between the degree of thickening in patients with different degree of acute exacerbation with age, sex, atopy and lengths of asthmatic history. The degree of thickening was positively correlated to degree of epithelial shedding (r=0.393, p<0.05), but not to the degree of total cell counts, differential cell percentage nor ECP in BAL fluid. CONCLUSION: We confirmed that thickening of the basement membrane is a characteristic finding of asthma. We also demonstrated that it affects symptom severity and bronchial hyperresponsiveness, and is related to degree of epithelial damage rather than duration of asthma history.
Airway Remodeling* ; Asthma* ; Basement Membrane ; Biopsy ; Bronchoscopy ; Cell Count ; Humans ; Inflammation ; Membranes ; Methacholine Chloride ; Microscopy

Thymidine phosphorylase (TP) has shown to be up-regulated in several cancers and to play a role in angiogenesis and invasion. Most studies regarding TP have focused on cancer cells. Recently, evidences suggest that TP in cancer-infiltrating inflammatory cells (CIICs) also affect the cancer cell behavior. To evaluate the significance of TP expression of CIICs in gastric cancer, we assessed TP expression of cancer cells and CIICs separately using immunohistochemical assay on 116 paraffin-embedded tissue samples from stomach cancer patients and investigated their clinical significance. When subjects were divided into 4 groups according to the TP expression: cancer/matrix (+/+), C/M (+/-), C/M (-/+), and C/M (-/-), intratumoral microvessel density scores were higher in the C/M (+/-) group than in the C/M (-/-) group (p=0.02). For lymph node metastasis and survival, there were no significant differences among the 4 groups. However, there were significant differences in survival (p=0.035) and LN metastasis (p=0.023) between the two groups divided by TP expression of CIICs alone irrespective of TP expression of cancer cells. Taken together, this study suggested the TP expression in CIICs could affect lymph node metastasis and patients' survival in gastric cancer.
Adult ; Aged ; Female ; Humans ; Immunohistochemistry ; Inflammation/*enzymology/pathology ; Kaplan-Meiers Estimate ; Lymphatic Metastasis ; Lymphocytes, Tumor-Infiltrating/*enzymology/pathology ; Male ; Microcirculation/pathology ; Middle Aged ; Neovascularization, Pathologic ; Prognosis ; Stomach Neoplasms/blood supply/*enzymology/mortality/pathology ; Thymidine Phosphorylase/*metabolism

BACKGROUND: Thymidine phosphorylase (TP) is an enzyme catalyzing the reversible phosphorolysis of thymidine to thymine and 2-deoxyribose-1-phosphate. TP plays a role in angiogenesis. Evidences suggest that infiltrating inflammatory cells adjacent cancer cells may affect tumor cell behavior. To evaluate each of these significances of TP expression in cancer cell and cancer-infiltrating inflammatory cells, we investigated TP expression patterns in cancer cells and infiltrating inflammatory cells adjacent cancer cells separately and the relationship between TP expression and angiogenesis or survival. METHODS: Immunohistochemistry assays were performed with anti-TP monoclonal antibody (Roche Japan) and anti-factor VIII polyclonal antibody (Dako) on 92 paraffin-embedded tissue samples from stomach cancer patients. A single pathologist scored the slides for percent positivity of tumor cells, intensity, localization and distribution of expression. TP reactivity in tumor cells (cancer) and infiltrating mononuclear cells adjacent cancer cells (matrix) was separately accessed. According to the pattern of TP expression, subjects were divided into 4 groups for further analysis: cancer(C;+)/matrix(M;+), cancer(+)/matrix(-), cancer(-)/matrix(+) and cancer(-)/matrix(-). With these 4 subsets of TP expression patterns, we evaluated cancer cell differentiation, intratumoral microvessel density, extent of tumor invasion, LN stage, and patient survival to find any differences among the subsets. RESULTS: Of 92 stomach cancer tissue, C/M(+/+), C/M(+/-), C/M(-/+), and C/M(-/-) were observed in 33patients, 19, 30, and 10, respectively. Microvessel density scores were higher in cancer(+)/matrix(-) group compared in cancer(-)/matrix(-) group (p=0.02). Of 4 TP expression subsets, other clinical factors such as histology, extent of tumor invasion, and LN metastasis were not associated with TP expression. CONCLUSION: This study suggested the TP in cancer-infiltrating inflammatory cell as well as cancer cells themselves may play an important role in angiogenesis as co-active factors in stomach cancer.
Cell Differentiation ; Humans ; Immunohistochemistry ; Microvessels ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Prognosis* ; Stomach Neoplasms* ; Stomach* ; Thymidine Phosphorylase ; Thymidine* ; Thymine

No abstract available.
Actinomycosis*