Symptomatic pericardial cysts and dilemmas in their diagnosis.

Pericardial cysts (PCs) or pleuropericardial cysts are rare congenital mediastinal lesions with an approximate incidence of one in 100 000 persons. Usually, they are asymptomatic, being incidentally discovered during a routine chest imaging examination or an autopsy exam. The study involved a retrospective evaluation of clinicopathological findings in a 6-year series of PCs, treated in the Clinic of Pulmonary Diseases, Iaşi, Romania.

The clinicopathological challenges of symptomatic and incidental pulmonary hamartomas diagnosis.

Pulmonary hamartomas (PHs) are the most common benign lung tumors. Usually, they are asymptomatic and incidentally discovered during assessment for other diseases or during the autopsy exam. In this context, we have performed a retrospective analysis of surgical resections in a 5-year series of patients diagnosed with PHs in the Clinic of Pulmonary Diseases, Iaşi, Romania, aiming to evaluate their clinicopathological features.

Odontogenic orbital inflammation.

This study aimed to determine the most frequent clinical aspects in patients with odontogenic orbital inflammation, the computed tomography (CT) aspect, and the most appropriate treatment. This is a retrospective case-series study conducted on 3 patients with ages between 16 and 55 years old, in the Ophthalmology and Oro-Maxillo-Facial Clinics of "Sf. Spiridon" Emergency Hospital, Iași, Romania.

Remodeling of basement membrane in patients with asthma.

The "bronchial remodeling" specific for the asthmatic disease consists in irreversible changes of the bronchial wall, including glandular and smooth muscle fibers hyperplasia and÷or hypertrophy, goblet cells hyperplasia, and thickening of basement membrane (BM). We aimed to analyze the BM thickness in asthma patients, in order to validate the relationship between its changes and the disease severity defined in agreement with the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) criteria. The study group has been formed of 38 patients with different degrees of severity of asthma established by spirometry using Forced Expiratory Volume in one second (FEV1), and two patients without asthma symptoms as controls.

[Expression of the Bax proapoptotic factor in asthmatic patients].

The alteration in the expression of the factors involved in the apoptotic mechanism of the respiratory cell epithelium of asthma patients remains an unsolved issue. The mitochondria holds a very important place in the apoptotic chain, making therefore the study of the proteins belonging to the Bcl-2 family that "controls" permeability of mitochondria's membrane extremely interesting, both for asthma as for other diseases. Our main concern in this study was to reveal the changes in expression of Bax factor at the level of the respiratory epithelium in asthma patients.