PCOS diagnosis in adolescents: the timeline of a controversy in a systematic review.

Study objective Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) in adolescence, a disorder of exclusion, has proved to be a timeless diagnostic challenge for the clinician. Since 1990, several attempts to provide clear diagnostic criteria have been published, most of the time leading to inconsistencies. We attempted to elucidate the controversies and convergences of this subject by conducting a systematic review of the literature concerning official guidelines or proposed criteria for the diagnosis of PCOS in adolescent girls.

Excision-repair-cross-complement-1 protein as a prognostic factor in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer treated with platinum-based first-line chemotherapy.

Excision-repair-cross-complement-1 (ERCC1) protein expression in tumor cells has been associated with resistance to platinum compounds, the backbone of treatment in NSCLC. In the current study the impact of the tumoral ERCC1 protein expression on the outcome of patients with advanced stage NSCLC treated with platinum-based chemotherapy, was investigated. Ninety-four patients with inoperable stage III-IV NSCLC, treated with platinum-based first-line chemotherapy, were retrospectively analyzed.

DNA repair gene polymorphisms predict favorable clinical outcome in advanced non-small-cell lung cancer.

Background: Genetic polymorphisms of genes involved in DNA repair and glutathione metabolic pathways may affect patients' response to platinum-based chemotherapy. We retrospectively assessed whether single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) of DNA-repair genes ERCC1, XPD, XRCC1 and glutathione S-transferase genes GSTP1, GSTT1 and GSTM1 predict overall survival (OS), response and toxicity in 119 non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients treated with platinum-based regimens as first- or second-line chemotherapy.

Patients And Methods: Patients' genotypes were determined by PCR-RFLP and sequencing approaches.

Estrogen exerts neuroprotective effects via membrane estrogen receptors and rapid Akt/NOS activation.

The neuroprotective role of estrogen (E2) is supported by a multitude of experimental and epidemiological data, although its mode of action is not fully understood. The present work was conducted to study the underlying mechanisms of its neuroprotective action, using the rat cell line PC12, an established model for neuronal cell apoptosis and survival. Our results show that E2 (but not androgens or progestins) prevent growth inhibition and apoptosis of PC12 cells, induced by serum deprivation.