A 57-year-old man with a history of chemotherapy because of cutaneous lymphoma presented with an orbital apex syndrome. The cranial computed tomography scan revealed a tumour in the orbital apex, ...extending intradurally. With a suspected diagnosis of a neoplastic lesion, the patient underwent orbital surgery with optic nerve decompression. Histology revealed an aspergilloma. No other foci were seen and treatment with antifungals was started. In immunocompromised patients with intracranial tumours, infection is always a major consideration in the differential diagnosis, even if the reason for immunosuppression (in this case chemotherapy) dates back several months. Misdiagnosing an orbital apex lesion as a cancer and treating patients primarily with corticosteroids can be life threatening. Removal or biopsy of such lesions is essential in further treatment since antifungals have to be administered as fast as possible.
We report on a 29-year-old primigravida who developed impetigo herpetiformis 1 day after delivery. To our knowledge, this patient is the second reported case of impetigo herpetiformis presenting ...during the puerperium. The patient responded quickly to systemic administration of methotrexate and prednisolone.
Electromagnetic Dissociation (ED) occurs in collisions of relativistic heavy ions involving impact parameters larger than the nuclear interaction radius. In such collisions strong electromagnetic ...fields acting at the nucleus can produce, for high charges and ultrarelativistic energies, cross sections much larger than the total nuclear interaction cross section. In ED collisions absorption of a virtual photon generally leads to excitation of a nuclear giant resonance. The NA53 experiment studied ED by bombarding Au targets with 158 GeV/nucleon Pb projectiles from the SPS accelerator. Preliminary values of σ
ED
for the one- and two-neutron removal processes were determined to be 26.4 ± 4.0 and 4.6 ± 0.7 barns, respectively. Theoretical predictions for σ
ED
were calculated including the effects of both the E1 and E2 giant resonances. The calculations are extended to energies planned for heavy ion collisions at the RHIC and LHC colliders.
Radiochemotherapy (RCT) is an effective treatment for locally advanced non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), but can be limited by acute and late toxicities (esophagitis, pneumonitis, and ...myelosuppression). This trial investigated whether pretreatment with amifostine, a radioprotector, could reduce the incidence of radiochemotherapy-induced acute and late toxicities.
Between October 1997 and August 1999, 73 patients with previously untreated Stage IIIa–IIIb NSCLC were randomized to treatment with RCT alone (
n = 36) or RCT plus amifostine (300 mg/m
2 daily i.v. infusion,
n = 37). RCT consisted of either paclitaxel (60 mg/m
2) or carboplatin (AUC 2) once weekly during a 5- to 6-week course of conventional radiotherapy given as 2 Gy/5 days/week to a total dose of 55 to 60 Gy. Blood cell counts were measured weekly; esophagitis and acute lung toxicity were evaluated during the treatment course. Treatment efficacy was assessed following World Health Organization criteria for response. Late lung toxicity was assessed at 3 and 6 months after RCT and was graded from 0 to 4 according to the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group/European Organization for the Research and Treatment of Cancer criteria.
A total of 68 patients were evaluable for toxicity analysis (RCT group,
n = 32; RCT + amifostine,
n = 36). There was no significant difference between treatment arms in patient baseline characteristics. The incidence of Grade ≥3 esophagitis during RCT was significantly lower for patients receiving amifostine than for patients receiving RCT alone (38.9% vs. 84.4%%,
p < 0.001). Furthermore, the incidence of Grade ≥3 acute pulmonary toxicity was significantly reduced in patients treated with RCT plus amifostine compared to patients who received RCT alone (19.4% vs. 56.3%,
p = 0.002). At 3 months after RCT, patients treated with amifostine had a significantly lower incidence of pneumonitis than patients who received RCT alone (
p = 0.009). Combined response rates (complete plus partial responses) were 82.2% in the RCT group and 88.8% in the RCT plus amifostine group (
p = 0.498).
Amifostine is effective in reducing the incidence of both acute and late toxicities associated with RCT in patients with locally advanced NSCLC without compromising antitumor efficacy.
The production of charged pions in minimum bias p+C interactions is studied using a sample of 377000 inelastic events obtained with the NA49 detector at the CERN SPS at 158 GeV/c beam momentum. The ...data cover a phase space area ranging from 0 to 1.8 GeV/c in transverse momentum and from -0.1 to 0.5 in Feynman xF. Inclusive invariant cross sections are given on a grid of 270 bins per charge, thus offering for the first time a dense coverage of the projectile hemisphere and of the cross-over region into the target fragmentation zone.
Complexly alloyed nickel alloys with over 20% chromium are susceptible to formation of primary and secondary *a-Cr phases that possess a high hardness and an unfavorable morphology and diminish the ...strength and heat resistance of the alloys simultaneously with the ductility. Attempts to improve the morphology of the *a-Cr phase by the traditional combination of heat treatment operations (quenching followed by aging) have not been successful. With increase in the chromium content the growth in the strength and heat resistance is accompanied by a decrease in the ductility, caused primarily by the unfavorable primary segregations of the *a-Cr phase and chromium carbides in the structure of the cast alloys. With transition to the granule process (with granules 5-10 mm in size) the dispersity of the primary segregations increases and their amount decreases due to acceleration of the crystallization and lowering of the dendritic parameter. This is accompanied by an increase in the ductility and simultaneous increase in the strength of the alloys. We performed a microscopic analysis of the fractional composition and structure of rapidly hardened powders of high-chromium nickel alloys obtained by electroerosion dispersion using the methods of light and electron microscopy. Using the methods of stereometric metallography we obtained the size distributions of the powders as a function of the chromium content in the alloys and the initial condition of the alloys (cast alloys crystallized at various rates, granules).
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