The Value of Outsourcing Selected Cases in a Medical Examiner Population: A 10-Year Experience.

Due to increasing caseloads and inadequate staffing, the burden on Coroner/Medical Examiner Offices to comply with recommended autopsy limits for forensic pathologists (FPs) has been difficult. Since 2006, pathologists at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have performed select autopsies for the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences. Each case was reviewed by a state FP and scene investigator to determine appropriateness for referral.

Anterior gradient protein-2 is a regulator of cellular adhesion in prostate cancer.

Anterior Gradient Protein (AGR-2) is reported to be over-expressed in many epithelial cancers and promotes metastasis. A clear-cut mechanism for its observed function(s) has not been previously identified. We found significant upregulation of AGR-2 expression in a bone metastatic prostate cancer cell line, PC3, following culturing in bone marrow-conditioned medium.

Histological characteristics of the fetal inflammatory response associated with neurodevelopmental impairment and death in extremely preterm infants.

Objective: To test the hypothesis that increasing severity of the fetal inflammatory response (FIR) would have a dose-dependent relationship with severe neurodevelopmental impairment or death in extremely preterm infants.

Study Design: We report 347 infants of 23-28 weeks gestational age admitted to a tertiary neonatal intensive care unit between 2006 and 2008. The primary outcome was death or neurodevelopmental impairment at the 18- to 22-month follow-up.

Incremental value of live/real time three-dimensional transesophageal echocardiography over the two-dimensional technique in the assessment of sinus of valsalva aneurysm rupture.

We present an adult patient with rupture of the right sinus of Valsalva aneurysm in whom the two-dimensional transesophageal echocardiogram failed to show the rupture. On the other hand, live/real time three-dimensional transesophageal echocardiography clearly delineated the site of rupture into the pericardium and mediastinum.

Clostridium septicum aortitis causing aortic dissection in a 22-year-old man.

Clostridium septicum infection is a rare cause of aortic dissection, and the mortality rate for the condition is high. Only 26 cases of C. septicum aortitis have been reported; all of those patients were elderly, and 20 of them had an associated colonic neoplasm.

Statins improve human coronary atherosclerotic plaque morphology.

Statin treatment markedly reduces the incidence of acute coronary events in patients with coronary atherosclerosis. Although imaging studies have indirectly shown the beneficial effects of statins on plaque morphology, there has to our knowledge been no reported histologic comparison of the morphology of coronary plaque in statin-treated versus untreated patients who had substantial coronary artery atherosclerosis. We retrospectively studied arterial sections from the native hearts of patients who had experienced end-stage ischemic heart disease and subsequent cardiac transplantation.