[Prevention of non infectious health problems in expatriates and humanitarian workers].

Frequently, expatriates and humanitarian workers change their lifestyle during expatriation and take more risks. Exposure to sun and heat, alcohol abuse, unprotected sexual relationships, stress, accidents and security incidents are the main non infectious health risks. It is important to prevent them, as the consequences are more serious abroad.

[Stress and mental health in expatriates].

To be an expatriate can be a very rewarding experience. Nevertheless, it requires a great ability of adaptation to a new environment. The living and professional conditions may be very demanding.

Estrogen signaling is active in cartilaginous tumors: implications for antiestrogen therapy as treatment option of metastasized or irresectable chondrosarcoma.

Purpose: Chondrosarcoma is a malignant cartilaginous matrix-producing tumor that can be lethal in 10% to 50% of the patients. Surgery is the only effective treatment known as these tumors are notorious refractory to all types of conventional chemotherapy or radiotherapy. To identify a target for therapy, we want to determine whether estrogen signaling is active in chondrosarcoma because estrogen is important in the regulation of longitudinal growth that is initiated by chondrocyte proliferation and differentiation in the epiphyseal growth plate of long bones.

Molecular analysis of the INK4A/INK4A-ARF gene locus in conventional (central) chondrosarcomas and enchondromas: indication of an important gene for tumour progression.

Loss of heterozygosity (LOH) at chromosomal band 9p21 is one of the few consistent genetic aberrations found in conventional chondrosarcoma. This locus harbours two cell-cycle regulators, CDKN2A/p16/INK4A and INK4A-p14ARF, which are inactivated in various human malignancies. It was therefore hypothesized that this locus also plays a role in the development of chondrosarcoma and this locus was investigated at protein, genetic, and epigenetic levels.

High quality RNA isolation from tumours with low cellularity and high extracellular matrix component for cDNA microarrays: application to chondrosarcoma.

Aims: High quality RNA isolation from cartilaginous tissue is considered difficult because of relatively low cellularity and the abundance of extracellular matrix rich in glycosaminoglycans and collagens. Given the growing interest and technical possibilities to study RNA expression at a high throughput level, research on tissue with these characteristics is hampered by the lack of an efficient method for obtaining sufficient amounts of high quality RNA.

Methods: This paper presents a robust protocol combining two RNA isolation procedures, based on a combination of Trizol and RNA specific columns, which has been developed to obtain high molecular weight RNA from fresh frozen and stored tissue of normal cartilage and cartilaginous tumours.