KIT receptor is expressed in more than 50% of early-stage malignant melanoma: a retrospective study of 261 patients.

The c-kit gene encodes a transmembrane receptor (KIT) with tyrosine kinase activity which is a specific target for anti-cancer therapy. We investigated KIT expression in a group of patients with early-stage malignant melanoma. Primary tumour specimens obtained from 261 radically resected patients with stage I and II malignant melanoma were examined for KIT expression.

[Helicobacter heilmanii, a spiral bacterium, in gastric mucosa biopsies].

Interest in possible microbiological causes of gastritis has increased significantly since the discovery of Helicobacter pylori (Hp). Recently a spiral bacterium named Helicobacter heilmannii (Hh) was described in association with chronic gastritis in adult and pediatric patients. Comparisons between these two organisms, as well as the literature on Hh, have also been reviewed.

[Pancreatic tumors with endocrine activity in adolescents].

The authors demonstrate three patients--two with a nesidioma of the B-cells with insulin production, the third had a nesidioma made up of non-B cells with clinical manifestations of gastrin hypersecretion. The surgical solution was successful in the patients with B-cell nesiodiomas.

Our treatment philosophy of gliomas of the anterior visual pathways.

Therapeutic strategy and clinical course of 28 low grade gliomas of the anterior visual tract were analyzed and compared with results of quantitative microscopic examination. Children operated on between 1978 and 1987 were divided into four groups according to the tumor site. DNA microfluorometry and image analysis of bioptic material were used for an objective differentiation between morphologically almost identical gliomas classified as pilocytic astrocytomas (grade I).

[Primary hemangioendothelioma of the liver in childhood].

Rare cases of multiple haemangioendothelioma of the liver were seen in a boy 2 and a half months old and a girl aged 3 and a half years. More foci--in the skin in case No. 1, and in the spleen in the other case--were rated as part of the multiplicity not as metastases.

[Fine structure of the myoblastic myoma].

A series of 10 myoblastic myomas were examined with the light and electron microscope. Based on electron microscopical examinations, the findings permitted to divide the cases according to their most probable histogenesis in two groups as follows: a) the granular lesions of the appendix and those of the hypophyseal infundibulum most probably originate from nervous tissue; b) the lesions of the skin and the tongue most probably are results of alterations of cell metabolism.