A novel intraarterial chemotherapy using paclitaxel in albumin nanoparticles to treat advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue: preliminary findings.

Objective: The purpose of our study was to evaluate the effectiveness of intraarterial infusion of paclitaxel incorporated into human albumin nanoparticles for use as induction chemotherapy before definitive treatment of advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue.

Subjects And Methods: Twenty-three previously untreated patients (age range, 27-75 years) who had carcinoma of the tongue (stage T3-T4, any N) received intraarterial therapy with paclitaxel incorporated into albumin nanoparticles delivered by transfemoral catheterization into the external carotid artery (10 patients), selectively into the lingual artery (12 patients), or into a faciolingual trunk (1 patient). Each patient received two to four infusions, with a 3-week interval between infusions.

Different effects of calcitriol and parathyroidectomy on the PTH-calcium curve in dialysis patients with severe hyperparathyroidism.

Background: The PTH-calcium sigmoidal curve is shifted to the right, the slope of the curve is steeper, and the set point of calcium is increased in dialysis patients with secondary hyperparathyroidism, compared to patients with low-turnover bone disease. These findings could be related to increased parathyroid cell mass and increased sensitivity of parathyroid cells to serum calcium variations in these patients. Calcitriol therapy has been documented to reduce PTH levels by shifting the curve to the left and downward.

[Clinical applications of color-Doppler: the parathyroid glands].

The high-resolution appearance of enlarged parathyroid glands is well known. Thus, real-time gray-scale US alone fails to provide, in ENT surgery, adequate sensitivity and specificity rates to differentiate between parathyroid glands, hypoechoic thyroid adenomas and other hypoechoic neck masses. Since parathyroid tissue, in both normal and enlarged glands, is hypervascular, color-Doppler US is used as a sort of non-invasive angiography to identify parathyroid glands.

[Role of beta-carotene in the prevention of genotoxic damage in patients undergoing radiotherapy. Monitoring by the micronucleus test in exfoliative cells of the oral cavity].

Radiotherapic treatment of patients with carcinoma usually causes genotoxis damage. This has been studied recently using the test of micronuclei in esfoliated cells. This test presents methodologic advantages in compared with the classic citogenetic analysis and as it is carried out on esfolieted cells from the oral cavity it faithfully reflects the genotoxic damage undergone by the cells of the basal layer of the epitelium.

[The quantitative study of nucleolar organizers (AgNOR) in the diagnosis of laryngeal dysplasias and in the assessment of the prognosis in invasive carcinoma].

Nucleolar organiser regions (AgNOR) are chromosomal segments in which ribosomal RNA is codified. These structures can be identified in the nuclei of cells in routine histological sections using a silver staining technique which reveals the proteins associated with transcription RNA. The number of AgNOR identified depends on the state of cell proliferation.