Opening new vistas on obsessive-compulsive disorder with the observing response task.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a highly prevalent and debilitating disorder, is incompletely understood in terms of underpinning behavioural, psychological, and neural mechanisms. This is attributable to high symptomatic heterogeneity; cardinal features comprise obsessions and compulsions, including clinical subcategories. While obsessive and intrusive thoughts are arguably unique to humans, dysfunctional behaviours analogous to those seen in clinical OCD have been examined in nonhuman animals.

[5MHz realtime sonography of the breast. 2. Examination technic and diagnostic value].

The diagnostic value of mamma-sonography using realtime technique was evaluated in a prospective study based on the experience of 452 pathomorphologically confirmed sonographic results. Large cysts (greater than 1 cm) were correctly classified as 97%, while small cysts (less than or equal to 1 cm) were recognized in 84%. Eighty-six percent of the fibroadenomas were visualized; 50% of these lesions were classified as "benign" and 34% as "equivocal--probably benign".

Sonographic morphology of the breast.

The interpretation of ultrasound mammograms is complicated by the heterogeneous tissue structure of the breast. To improve the diagnostic analysis, a method has been developed which enables us to correlate ultrasound images of mastectomized specimen with the cross-sectional anatomy, the computerized tomography, the X-ray photographs of the specimen and the histopathologic study of the corresponding gross serial sections. Some echophenomena considering the propagation properties of ultrasound are discussed.