Neurocysticercosis in a Japanese woman with lung cancer who repeatedly visited endemic countries.

Background: Taenia solium, present in most developing countries, infects many individuals and may result in their death. Neurocysticercosis (NCC) develops after invasion of the brain by parasitic larvae. It is the most common parasitic disease of the human central nervous system.

Basilar artery occlusion presenting as sudden bilateral deafness: a case report.

Background: Most sudden-onset hearing loss is due to otolaryngologic- and very rarely to cerebrovascular disease. We report a woman with sudden bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. This case suggests that even in the absence of brainstem or cerebellar signs, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and MR angiography (MRA) should be performed since such studies may reveal signs of life-threatening vertebrobasilar artery occlusion.

Adult-onset atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumor featuring long spindle cells with nuclear palisading and perivascular pseudorosettes.

Atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumors (AT/RTs) are rare malignant neoplasms of the CNS that preferentially affect young children. We herein report an adult case of AT/RT surviving for more than 5 years with the residual tumor. The patient, a 24-year-old man at onset, presented with a contrast-enhancing mass lesion in the left occipital lobe, and underwent partial tumor resection.

Involvement of ABC7 in the biosynthesis of heme in erythroid cells: interaction of ABC7 with ferrochelatase.

A mitochondrial half-type ATP-binding cassette (ABC) protein, ABC7, plays a role in iron homeostasis in mitochondria, and defects in human ABC7 were shown to be responsible for the inherited disease X-linked sideroblastic anemia/ataxia. We examined the role of ABC7 in the biosynthesis of heme in erythroid cells where hemoglobin is a major product of iron-containing compounds. RNA blots showed that the amount of ABC7 mRNA in dimethylsulfoxide (Me(2)SO)-treated mouse erythroleukemia (MEL) cells increased markedly in parallel with the induction of the mRNA expression of ferrochelatase, the last enzyme in the pathway to synthesize heme.