Comparison of nerve content in removed parametrial tissue after classic radical hysterectomy and nerve-sparing radical hysterectomy--histologic evaluation.

Purpose Of Investigation: The aim of this study was to find whether nerve-sparing radical hysterectomy resulted in a lower amount of nerves in the removed parametrial tissue.

Methods: Histological specimens from nerve-sparing radical hysterectomy (28 cases) were compared with those obtained after classic radical hysterectomy (26 cases). Width of the parametria and vaginal cuff were measured.

Choroidal melanoma metastasized to the ovary: case report and review of the literature.

Background: Malignant melanoma metastases to the female genital tract in only 2.5% of cases. Melanoma is characterized by clinical variability and unpredictable biological behavior with long remissions and relapses that develop rapidly.

Amelanotic malignant melanoma of the uterine cervix with ten-year follow-up.

Background: Malignant melanoma (MM) accounts for 3% of cancers that affect women and results in less than 1% of cancer deaths. It is characterized by clinical variability and unpredictable biological behavior. Fewer than ten cases of amelanotic MM (AMM) have been reported in literature.

Treatment of autoimmune disease by adoptive cellular gene therapy.

Autoimmune disorders represent inappropriate immune responses directed at self-tissue. Antigen-specific CD4+ T cells and antigen-presenting dendritic cells (DCs) are important mediators in the pathogenesis of auto-immune disease and thus are ideal candidates for adoptive cellular gene therapy, an ex vivo approach to therapeutic gene transfer. Using retrovirally transduced cells and luciferase bioluminescence, we have demonstrated that primary T cells, T cell hybridomas, and DCs rapidly and preferentially home to the sites of inflammation in animal models of multiple sclerosis, arthritis, and diabetes.

Localized expression of an anti-TNF single-chain antibody prevents development of collagen-induced arthritis.

Although systemic administration of neutralizing anti-TNF antibodies has been used successfully in treating rheumatoid arthritis, there is a potential for side effects. We transduced a collagen reactive T-cell hybridoma with tissue-specific homing properties to assess therapeutic effects of local delivery to inflamed joints of anti-TNF single-chain antibodies (scFv) by adoptive cellular gene therapy. Cell culture medium conditioned with 1 x 10(6) scFv producer cells/ml had TNF neutralizing capacity in vitro equivalent to 50 ng/ml anti-TNF monoclonal antibody.