Brown bear (Ursus arctos arctos) femoral head and neck excision.

A 30-yr-old untamed European female brown bear (Ursus arctos arctos) with a craniodorsal luxation of the right femoral head and bilateral degenerative joint disease of the coxofemoral joint had a femoral head and neck excision following unsatisfactory conservative medical therapy. The bear was injected with zolazepam-tiletamine, and anesthesia was induced with i.v.

c-Ha-ras polymorphism in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. Comparison of healthy subjects and alcoholic patients with cirrhosis.

It has been observed that certain rare alleles of the c-Ha-ras gene occur more frequently in patients with certain malignant tumors than in healthy individuals, suggesting that these alleles may serve as markers for particular types of cancer. In this study, we compared the restriction fragment length polymorphism at the c-Ha-ras gene locus in 40 patients with cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma with that in 39 patients with cirrhosis and in 42 normal subjects, all of Caucasian origin. Southern blotting of leukocyte DNA from the above patients, after digestion with either BamH1 or AvaII, revealed the presence of allele fragments of different sizes, corresponding to 4 common alleles and 3 rare alleles.

Interest of the detection of hepatitis C virus RNA in patients with alcoholic liver disease. Comparison with the HBV status.

HCV-RNA detection was investigated in 66 chronic alcoholic patients divided into 3 groups according to the severity of liver injury: group 1 included 22 chronic alcoholics without cirrhosis, group 2, 20 patients with alcoholic cirrhosis and group 3, 24 patients with alcoholic cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. The 'nested' polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique amplifying the 5' non-coding region was used to detect HCV-RNA. For comparison, ELISA1, ELISA2 and RIBA2 tests (Ortho Diagnostics System) were also used to detect anti-HCV antibodies.

[A rare cause of upper digestive tract hemorrhage: an esophageal fistula in mediastinal tuberculous adenopathy].

We report a case of esophageal fistula of a tubercular mediastinal adenopathy revealed by melena and which was diagnosed partly by means of endoscopy and partly by scanning after carrying out endoscopic fistulography. Endoscopic ultrasound, which was carried out as a complementary examination, confirmed this diagnosis.