A primary cutaneous carcinosarcoma of the retro auricular region, how to treat and literature review.

Introduction: Carcinosarcomas are malignant biphasic tumours of epithelial and mesenchymal tissue. They are most often found in visceral organs, but also appear on the skin. Older age, male sex and chronic sun exposure are risk factors for its development.

Safe and effective treatment of problem scars with the purely thermal non-ablative Er:YAG laser scar mode.

Introduction: Traumatic events as well as surgery can cause a large variety of scars, which are often a major psychological concern to patients. Moreover, patients often report itching or burning sensations as well as pain. We investigated the efficacy of purely non-ablative laser therapy in order to improve the appearance and quality of these scars.

Traumatic tattoo: use of the variable pulsed erbium:YAG laser.

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of removing traumatic tattoos in the skin by laser. The objective was to achieve selective dermabrasion on the tattoo site without injuries to the surrounding skin, as in the classical mechanical dermabrasion.

Methods: Four patients with traumatic tattoos in the face were treated by a variable pulsed erbium:YAG laser.

Minimally invasive skin rejuvenation with Erbium: YAG laser used in thermal mode.

Background And Objectives: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of a thermal mode Erbium:YAG laser several in-vivo morphological as well as clinical changes were monitored in a multi-center investigation.

Study Design/materials And Methods: An Erbium:YAG laser was used at a thermal mode with sub-ablative fluences of 2.1 and 3.

Haptoglobin polymorphism, a genetic risk factor in coronary artery bypass surgery.

Haptoglobin (Hp) 2-2 type has been associated with accumulation of atherosclerotic lesions in essential hypertension. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between Hp type and the extension of coronary lesions in 765 male patients who underwent coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). In this group, relative Hp1 (0.

Foam cell replication and smooth muscle cell apoptosis in human saphenous vein grafts.

Occlusion of saphenous vein grafts is a major problem after coronary artery bypass grafting. Segments of occluded and suboccluded implanted aortocoronary grafts were obtained during re-intervention bypass grafting in 47 patients yielding a total of 80 vein grafts. The grafts were studied by immunohistochemistry for smooth muscle cells (alpha-SMC actin), macrophages (HAM56), cell replication (PCNA, Ki-67) and transmission and scanning electronmicroscopy (TEM, SEM).

Influence of the breathing mode on the time course and amplitude of the cyclic inter-atrial pressure reversal in postoperative coronary bypass surgery patients.

The haemodynamic basis for paradoxical embolization in patients with stroke and decompression sickness has not yet been fully elucidated. Therefore right and left atrial pressures were measured simultaneously with peroperatively placed catheters after coronary artery bypass grafting in 17 patients with sinus rhythm and normal left ventricular function. Recordings were made both during spontaneous breathing and positive pressure ventilation.

Chondrosarcoma of the thoracic wall.

Eight cases of chondrosarcoma of the thoracic wall were treated during a 13-year period. The radicality of tumor resection was positively correlated with patient survival. Wide primary resection without preceding biopsy is advocated for thoracic lesions suspected from computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging to be chondrosarcoma.

Right atrial invasive thymoma with protrusion through the tricuspid valve.

A patient with superior caval vein compression due to malignant thymoma with infrequent intracavitary cardiac growth is presented. Diagnostic accuracy of cardiac involvement was higher using transesophageal echocardiography compared to transthoracic echocardiography. The majority of the rare intracavitary cardiac thymomas seem to be confined to the right side of the heart.

Transoesophageal echo-Doppler in patients suspected of a cardiac source of peripheral emboli.

The initial results of a controlled and partly blinded study aimed at evaluating the accuracy of transoesophageal echo-Doppler in detecting cardiac sources of peripheral emboli are reported. A total of 120 consecutive patients suspected of acute embolic events were entered. After completion of all investigations, the patients were classified into three groups: patients who had definitely not suffered an embolic event (controls; n = 56); patients in whom the differentiation between local thrombosis, embolic event originating from a diseased infarct-related artery or embolic event from a cardiac source was not possible (questionable cases; n = 24) and patients in whom a cardiac source of a definite embolic event was highly suspected (cardiac emboli; n = 40).

The modulation of smooth muscle cell phenotype is an early event in human aorto-coronary saphenous vein grafts.

The morphological changes in human vein grafts occurring in the first days after a coronary bypass operation (CBP) are rarely reported in the literature. Sections of aorto-coronary vein grafts from 11 patients who died during the first 10 days after a CBP were obtained at autopsy. The number of vein grafts per patient ranged from 1 to 4, yielding a total of 28 vein grafts.