Acute appendicitis in a patient after a uterus transplant: A case report.

Background: Acute appendicitis in a solid organ transplant recipient is a rare occurrence, and experience remains limited. Appendicitis in uterine transplant recipients has never been reported. Immunocompromised patients with acute abdomen often present late and with attenuated symptoms.

A human pericardium biopolymeric scaffold for autologous heart valve tissue engineering: cellular and extracellular matrix structure and biomechanical properties in comparison with a normal aortic heart valve.

The objective of our study was to compare the cellular and extracellular matrix (ECM) structure and the biomechanical properties of human pericardium (HP) with the normal human aortic heart valve (NAV). HP tissues (from 12 patients) and NAV samples (from 5 patients) were harvested during heart surgery. The main cells in HP were pericardial interstitial cells, which are fibroblast-like cells of mesenchymal origin similar to the valvular interstitial cells in NAV tissue.

Two sporadic infected cardiac myxomas in 1 patient.

Infected cardiac myxoma is a rare cause of endocarditis. The finding of coexisting infected cardiac myxomas is highly unusual. Herein, we present the case of a 58-year-old woman with a low-grade fever.

Tissue-engineered heart valves.

Currently-used mechanical and biological heart valve prostheses have several disadvantages. Mechanical prostheses, based on carbon, metallic and polymeric components, require permanent anticoagulation treatment, and their usage often leads to adverse reactions, e.g.

CD44 and its v6 spliced variant in lung carcinomas: relation to NCAM, CEA, EMA and UP1 and prognostic significance.

CD44 is a polymorphic family of cell surface glycoproteins that was recently reported to have important role in cell adhesion and migration as well as modulation of cell-matrix interactions. Thus, expression of CD44 has been proposed to be associated with malignant behavior of tumors like invasive growth and formation of metastasis. The expression of CD44s and its v6 isoform (CD44v6) was determined immunohistochemically in 106 lung tumors of various histophenotypes, degrees of differentiation, and clinical stages.

Cytokeratins and lung carcinomas.

Background: Recently, cytokeratins (CK) were studied as tumor markers for many carcinomas. In lung cancer they appeared to be useful in distinguishing primary from secondary tumors, in histological typing as well as in evaluating patient's prognosis. However, the results have yet to be conclusive.

Expression of cyclin D1, Ki-67 and PCNA in non-small cell lung cancer: prognostic significance and comparison with p53 and bcl-2.

Uncontrolled cell proliferation is the hallmark of malignant tumours. Thus, the proliferative potential of tumour cells is an important prognostic factor. However, evaluation of the prognostic significance of the expression of proteins involved in regulation of cell proliferation remains controversial.

[Expression of p53, p21 and bcl-2 in prognosis of lung carcinomas].

Expression of suppressor genes 53 and bcl-2 as well as of protein p21 (partly induced by p53 gene) was analyzed in a group of 77 resection specimens and bronchial excision of lung carcinomas (of all basic histological types--squamous cell, neuroendocrine, adenocarcinoma, undifferentiated). Simultaneously the relation of tumor immunophenotype and level of differentiation, cell death and 2-year-survival of patients was evaluated. Gene p53 showed non-only an expected strong expression in squamous cell carcinomas but especially in adenocarcinomas, which were newly characterized by exceptional hyper-expression of p53 in lowly differentiated variants.

[Expression of the nm 23 gene in pulmonary carcinomas].

Gene nm 23 may have an antimetastatic function but relevant data in the literature are ambiguous even in the same types of malignant tumors. In a group of 77 lung carcinomas there was not found any relation of gene nm 23 expression to the histologic type of tumor or the level of its differentiation and to the finding of metastases in resected lung materials either. Adenocarcinomas showed a negative relation of nm 23 expression to later occurrence of metastases and to a decreased survival of patients which squamous, neuroendocrine and undifferentiated carcinomas did not.

[Sarcomatous hepatocellular carcinoma].

Atypical variants of liver carcinomas may represent diagnostic pitfalls when compared with classical types. We described two cases of unusual hepatocellular carcinoma with sarcomatoid pattern. Both were large tumors in elderly people.