Giant thoracic schwannoma presenting with abrupt onset of abdominal pain: a case report.

Introduction: Giant intradural extramedullary schwannomas of the thoracic spine are not common. Schwannomas, that is, tumors derived from neoplastic Schwann cells, and neurofibromas represent the most common intradural extramedullary spinal lesions. We report the case of a patient with a giant thoracic schwannoma presenting unusually with acute abdominal pain and with delayed neurological impairment.

Modulation of major histocompatibility complex Class I molecules and major histocompatibility complex-bound immunogenic peptides induced by interferon-alpha and interferon-gamma treatment of human glioblastoma multiforme.

Object: Little is known about the quantitative modulation of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) Class I expression on human gliomas that is effected by interferons; even less is known about the immunogenic peptides that are accommodated in the peptide-binding motifs of MHC Class I alleles in these brain tumors. In this article the authors investigated the ability of interferon (IFN)alpha and IFNgamma to upregulate MHC Class I expression and to modulate acid-eluted Class I-bound peptides on human glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) cells in vitro.

Methods: Early-passage primary human GBM cell cultures and U87MG GBM cells were incubated with varying doses of INFalpha or IFNgamma ranging between 0 and 2000 U/ml.