Hepatoblastoma in Children Abbasoglu, L.; Gün, F.; Tansu Salman, F. ...
Acta chirurgica belgica,
06/2004, Letnik:
104, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Hepatoblastoma is the most common primary liver tumour in children. Complete surgical removal is the treatment of choice for cure ; however, in most cases the tumour is unresectable because of its ...extensive hepatic involvement.
Nineteen pediatric cases (11 boys, 8 girls) with ages ranging from three months to 17 years were referred for management to our clinic from 1982 until 2000. All but three suffered from abdominal distention. The other frequent complaints were abdominal mass, anorexia, fatigue, abdominal pain and fever. Physical examination revealed enlarged liver in all patients. In addition to laboratory studies, they were pre-operatively examined by ultrasonography and, in recent cases, computed tomography was also used. Serum alpha-fetoprotein levels were found to be elevated in all patients. In thirteen cases, hepatic resections (10 lobectomies, 2 trisegmentectomies, 1 segmentectomy) were performed. In six children only liver biopsies could be done because of the huge tumour size. However, in three of them the tumours were excised at the second laparotomy, but only one patient survived. All of the patients-except two who were lost in the early postoperative period-received chemotherapy whether the tumour was excised or biopsied. In this series the mortality rate was found to be very high (91%) in the 1980s, and more reasonable (50%) in the 1990s, with an overall mortality rate of 73 per cent.
This result might be explained with late referral and advanced stage at diagnosis. In addition, we speculate that a combination of improved chemotherapy and technical advances in anesthesia and hepatic resection caused the obvious differences in the survival rates between the two periods.
The effect of plasma nitriding on the fatigue life of AISI 4140 steel having a certain fatigue loading has been investigated. Untreated and nitrided specimens were subjected to fatigue loading up to ...a certain level, and then nitrided for 0.5 h and subjected to fatigue testing again. It was observed that the process applied to untreated specimens improves the fatigue life of the specimens that were plasma nitrided for 0.5 h due to the subsurface crack nucleation. However, for already nitrided specimens, a significant improvement in the fatigue life has not been observed by applying the proposed process because the compound layer on the surface prevents the diffusion during the second nitriding.
The CMS collaboration considers upgrading the muon forward region which is particularly affected by the high-luminosity conditions at the LHC. The proposal involves Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM) ...chambers, which are able to handle the extreme particle rates expected in this region along with a high spatial resolution. This allows to combine tracking and triggering capabilities, which will improve the CMS muon High Level Trigger, the muon identification and the track reconstruction. Intense R&D has been going on since 2009 and it has lead to the development of several GEM prototypes and associated detector electronics. These GEM prototypes have been subjected to extensive tests in the laboratory and in test beams at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS). This contribution will review the status of the CMS upgrade project with GEMs and its impact on the CMS performance.
Abstract Surface antigen mutations of hepatitis B virus (HBV) may lead to immune escape and cause failure of immunization. In this report, the development of a chronic HBV infection in a vaccinated ...renal transplant recipient with pre-existing anti-HBs antibody is documented. The sequencing data showed that the HBV strain carried five amino acid substitutions in the major hydrophilic region of the S protein, one (sS143L) located at the “a” determinant. A commercial HBsAg assay failed to detect the mutant antigen.
Background
A noninvasive marker of disease severity and presence of symptoms is required in patients with chronic rheumatic valve disease (RVD).
Aims
We sought to test the utility of measuring of ...N‐terminal pro‐B type natriuretic peptide (NT‐proBNP) in chronic phase RVD. We also evaluated whether echocardiographic measures are interrelated with NT‐proBNP levels.
Methods
The study comprised 92 patients with RVD (mean age of 40–14 years) and 50 age/gender‐matched control subjects. Functional status was assessed. Detailed echocardiographic examination was performed and mitral valve score was estimated. Venous blood samples were taken for measuring the level of NT‐proBNP.
Results
The plasma levels of NT‐proBNP rose with increasing severity of mitral valve stenosis (p<0.001), increasing severity of mitral valve score (p<0.001), increasing severity of clinical symptom (p<0.001), increasing severity of mitral regurgitation (p<0.013), presence of mitral valve calcification (p<0.001), presence of tricuspid valve stenosis (p<0.001), increasing severity of tricuspid regurgitation (p<0.011), presence of aortic stenosis (p=0.043), decreasing left ventricular ejection fraction (p<0.001), presence of left atrial thrombus (p=0.0019), and with increasing left atrium dimensions (p=0.002).
Conclusion
NT‐proBNP levels in patients with chronic RVD are a potential marker of disease severity and correlates with symptoms.
The ion nitriding behavior of AISI 5140 low-alloy steel was investigated under different process parameters including time (1, 4, 8, and 12 h), temperature (400, 450, 500, and 550 °C), and gas ...mixture ratio (0.05, 0.33, and 3 N
2/H
2). The ion nitriding properties of AISI 5140 steel have been assessed by evaluating fatigue strength, hardness profile, compound layer thickness, and case depth by using a rotating bending fatigue machine, a microhardness tester, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy dispersive spectrometry (EDS). It was found that ion nitriding improves the fatigue strength, which depends on increasing the case depth, but the compound layer does not have a dominant effect on the fatigue strength. After the fatigue tests, sections of ion-nitrided specimens were observed to have failed by the fish eye phenomenon with the fatigue cracks originating from nonmetallic inclusions.
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