Pneumatic retinopexy preceded by drainage of subretinal fluid for the treatment of severe bullous retinal detachment.

Purpose: To compare the efficacy and safety outcomes of scleral buckling (SB) and drainage-injection-pneumoretinopexy (DIP), a modified pneumatic retinopexy technique, in which, before gas injection, subretinal fluid is drained with a simultaneous injection of balanced salt solution (BSS) in the vitreous chamber, for the treatment of severe superior bullous rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (SBRD).

Methods: This prospective, randomized, comparative study included 58 eyes with severe SBRD that were randomized 1:1 to undergo SB or DIP. The main outcome measures included success rate, visual acuity, mean change in refractive error and surgery duration.

Secretoglobin expression in ovarian carcinoma: lipophilin B gene upregulation as an independent marker of better prognosis.

Background: The aim of the present study was to investigate within ovarian carcinoma and normal ovarian biopsies the gene expression of multiple secretoglobin family members relative to mammaglobin B, which we previously reported as a promising novel ovarian carcinoma prognostic marker.

Methods: Using quantitative real-time Reverse Transcription PCR we tested 53 ovarian carcinoma and 30 normal ovaries for the expression of 8 genes belonging to the secretoglobin family: mammaglobin A, lipophilin A, lipophilin B, uteroglobin, HIN-1, UGRP-1, RYD5 and IIS. Next, we decided to expand the LipB gene expression analysis to a further 48 ovarian carcinoma samples, for a total of 101 tumor tissues of various histologies and to study its protein expression by immunohistochemistry in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tumors and normal ovaries.

Prognostic factors in early-stage ovarian cancer.

The purpose of this study was to identify the main prognostic factors in patients with early-stage epithelial ovarian cancer. Data were extracted from 222 patients with initial stage (I-IIA) invasive epithelial ovarian cancer treated with primary surgery followed or not followed by adjuvant therapy, from 1 January 1980 to 31 December 2008, at the Division of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Spedali Civili, Brescia, Italy; the median follow-up was 79 months (SD ± 35,945, range 20-250 months). The negative prognostic factors that were statistically significant (p<0.