Cochlear implant rehabilitation outcomes in Waardenburg syndrome children.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to review the outcomes of children with documented Waardenburg syndrome implanted in the ENT Department of Centro Hospitalar de Coimbra, concerning postoperative speech perception and production, in comparison to the rest of non-syndromic implanted children.

Methods: A retrospective chart review was performed for children congenitally deaf who had undergone cochlear implantation with multichannel implants, diagnosed as having Waardenburg syndrome, between 1992 and 2011. Postoperative performance outcomes were assessed and confronted with results obtained by children with non-syndromic congenital deafness also implanted in our department.

Metaplasia--a transdifferentiation process that facilitates cancer development: the model of gastric intestinal metaplasia.

Metaplasia, in general, and intestinal metaplasia, in particular, are transdifferentiation processes triggered by environmental aggressions. The heterogeneity of different morphologic variants of metaplasia and distinction from close morphologic entities--heterotopia and hamartoma--is reviewed. Recent data on the characterization of the molecular and epidemiological data involved in the development and progression of lesions of gastric intestinal metaplasia are discussed.