Intraoperative tumor lysis syndrome in a giant teratoma: a case report.

Background: Tumor lysis syndrome is an unusual metabolic emergency in solid tumors. Perioperative occurrence of this syndrome is extremely rare but may have fatal consequences if not detected and treated on time.

Case Report: We report a 19-year patient with testicular germ cell tumor after first line chemotherapy with giant growing teratoma syndrome in retroperitoneum.

Backtracked analysis of preleukemic fusion genes and DNA repair foci in umbilical cord blood of children with acute leukemia.

The first event in origination of many childhood leukemias is a specific preleukemic fusion gene (PFG) that arises, often in utero, in hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPC) from misrepaired DNA double strand break (DSB). An immanently elevated level of DSB and impaired apoptosis may contribute to origination and persistence of PFG and donor cell-derived leukemia in recipients of allogeneic transplantation of umbilical cord blood (UCB). We investigated DSB, apoptosis and PFG in the backtracked UCB cells of leukemic patients.

[Treatment Refusal in Pediatric Oncology].

Background: Pediatric oncologists are often faced with situations in which parents or guardians refuse recommended treatment for curable childhood cancer. Deciding how to proceed in such situations is an ethical dilemma. The aim of this article is to consider optimal approaches when parents are strongly against oncological treatment, potentially compromising their childrens rights for health care and to the chance for cure.

Constitutive 53BP1/γH2AX foci are increased in cells of ALL patients dependent on BCR-ABL and TEL-AML1 preleukemic gene fusions.

Childhood leukemia arises from hematopoietic stem cells by induction of mutations. Quite often chromosomal translocations arise prenatally as first key event in multistage process of leukemogenesis. These translocations result in so called preleukemic gene fusions (PGFs), such as BCR-ABL and TEL-AML1, which generate hybrid proteins with altered properties.

Combined multiplex and monoplex RT-PCR as a reliable and cost-effective method for molecular diagnostics of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

The precise diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia is essential for correct prognosis assessment and therapy regimen selection. At present, immunophenotyping, cytogenetics and molecular screening are major and complementary methods utilized in a routine leukemia diagnostics. The aim of this study was to validate the application of multiplex reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay for molecular diagnosis of the most common pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia-associated fusion transcripts.