Treatment of diffuse diabetic maculopathy with intravitreal triamcinolone and laser photocoagulation: randomized clinical trial with morphological and functional evaluation.

Purpose: Treatment of diffuse macular edema in diabetes mellitus is currently unsatisfactory. The purpose of this double blind randomized clinical trial was to compare the treatment of diffuse diabetic macular edema with intravitreal triamcinolone or laser in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients using a morphofunctional assessment.

Methods: Fourteen patients (21 eyes) with clinically significant diffuse macular-edema, previously untreated and with a macular thickness >250 µm at optical coherence tomography were randomized for treatment with laser or intravitreal injection of triamcinolone acetate.

Use of a contact lens telescopic system in low vision patients.

This study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of a contact lens telescopic system in patients diagnosed with low vision. Fifteen white patients (mean age 60.7 years) with visual acuity between 20/60 and 20/400 (mean 20/245) were evaluated using first a conventional telescope and subsequently a contact lens telescope (CLT).

Breast cancer-associated protein pS2 expression in tumors of the biliary tract.

Expression of pS2 (an estrogen-induced gene isolated from breast carcinoma MCF7 cells) and of the human spasmolytic peptide (hSP) gene was analyzed in 21 human biliary tract and gallbladder carcinomas and 16 non-neoplastic gallbladders at the protein level (immunochemistry) and, in a series of these cases, at the RNA level (Northern blots). Eighteen carcinomas and 14 non-neoplastic mucosae with inflammatory alterations showed pS2 activity by immunostaining or Northern blotting. In addition, in samples with pS2 expression, hSP RNA was demonstrated.