A systematic and quantitative analysis of PCR template contamination.

A quantitative and systematic analysis is provided for ubiquitously present template DNA interfering with the quantification of human DNA by PCR. Two sources contributing to DNA background were identified. The first one is interpreted as DNA present in chemicals and on equipment and the second as caused by operator handling.

Impact of nodal status on indication for adjuvant treatment in clinically node negative breast cancer. Istituto Nazionale per lo Studio e las Cura dei Tumori.

We addressed the problem of the need for axillary dissection in clinically node-negative breast cancer by determining how the information provided by the dissection suggests a different treatment to that indicated by primary tumour characteristics and age alone. We examined retrospectively 260 cases of clinically node negative early breast cancer all of whom underwent breast surgery, radiotherapy and axillary dissection. We assigned adjuvant therapy according to accepted guidelines with and without consideration of pathological node status and compared the difference.

Prospective evaluation of late effects after childhood cancer therapy with a follow-up over 9 years.

Unlabelled: Intensive multimodality treatment has led to a remarkable improvement of prognosis in paediatric cancer patients, however, a great number of long-term survivors suffer from considerable tumour- or treatment-related late effects. Between January 1990 and December 1998, 223 consecutive survivors of childhood malignancies entered a prospective follow-up study designed to evaluate the frequency and severity of tumour- and/or therapy-related long-term sequelae. After cessation of therapy and subsequently once a year, all patients underwent a detailed examination programme including physical examination, laboratory tests, abdominal sonography, echocardiography, electrocardiography, electroencephalography, spirometry, audiometry, ophthalmological examination and endocrine stimulation tests.

Interferon-alpha and ribavirin in treating children and young adults with chronic hepatitis C after malignancy.

Objective: Chronic hepatitis C is a major long-term problem for children who survive cancer. Interferon (IFN)-alpha has been shown to be effective in treating patients with chronic hepatitis C; however, the rate of sustained response is low. Combining IFN-alpha and ribavirin (RBV) has been shown to significantly improve the response in adult patients with chronic hepatitis C.

Unrelated partially matched peripheral blood stem cell transplantation with highly purified CD34+ cells in a child with Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome.

Stem cell transplantation is the only curative approach to the treatment of Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome. However, using grafts from partially matched unrelated donors is associated with increased risk of graft rejection and graft-versus-host disease. In an attempt to prevent these problems, a 6-year-old boy with Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome lacking a suitable family donor, was transplanted with large numbers of unrelated highly purified CD34+ peripheral blood stem cells mismatched at one C locus.

Unrelated peripheral blood stem cell transplantation with 'megadoses' of purified CD34+ cells in three children with refractory severe aplastic anemia.

Three children with refractory severe aplastic anemia were transfused with high numbers of unrelated matched (n = 2) or C-locus haploidentical mismatched (n = 1) CD34-selected peripheral blood stem cells in the absence of an HLA-identical family donor. Two leukaphereses of the donors yielded a median number of 10.1 x 10(10) nucleated cells (range 9.

Naturalistic course of obsessive compulsive disorder and comorbid depression. Longitudinal results of a prospective follow-up study of 74 actively treated patients.

Seventy-four patients who met DSM-III-R criteria for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) were studied in a prospective follow-up study in order to investigate course and prognosis of OCD with or without comorbid depressive symptomatology. Subjects were examined three times: at admission (baseline), 6 months later (follow-up 1) and 12 months after follow-up 1 (follow-up 2). At admission, 51 (72.

Postoperative neoadjuvant chemotherapy before radiotherapy as compared to immediate radiotherapy followed by maintenance chemotherapy in the treatment of medulloblastoma in childhood: results of the German prospective randomized trial HIT '91.

Purpose: The German Society of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology (GPOH) conducted a randomized, prospective, multicenter trial (HIT '91) in order to improve the survival of children with medulloblastoma by using postoperative neoadjuvant chemotherapy before radiation therapy as opposed to maintenance chemotherapy after immediate postoperative radiotherapy.

Methods And Materials: Between 1991 and 1997, 158 patients were enrolled and 137 patients randomized. Seventy-two patients were allocated to receive neoadjuvant chemotherapy before radiotherapy (arm I, investigational).

Clinical characteristics and molecular epidemiology associated with imipenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae.

Eight patients were infected or colonized with imipenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (IRKP) from December 1994 to November 1995. Initial Klebsiella isolates were susceptible to imipenem but resistant to all cephalosporins, aminoglycosides, and beta-lactam inhibitor combinations. All patients had been in the surgical intensive care unit and had undergone abdominal surgery or tracheostomy during hospitalization.

Comparison of different methods for separation and ex vivo expansion of cord blood progenitor cells.

Umbilical cord blood is capable of hematopoietic stem cell reconstitution in children. However, the major limitation of cord blood is a relatively low content of pluripotent progenitor cells. Thus, safe engraftment for adolescents and for adults is still not predictable and a technology for ex vivo expansion of umbilical cord blood cells is desirable.

Successful treatment of ceftazidime-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae ventriculitis with intravenous meropenem and intraventricular polymyxin B: case report and review.

Increasing prevalence of multidrug-resistant gram-negative organisms has led to a rise in clinically significant infections with these organisms and an increasing therapeutic dilemma. We present a case of a neurosurgical patient who developed ventriculoperitoneal shunt-associated ventriculitis due to ceftazidime-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae susceptible to cefepime, imipenem, meropenem, and polymyxin B only. Successful management was accomplished by removal of the shunt and therapy with systemic meropenem and intraventricular polymyxin B.

Transplantation of related and unrelated umbilical cord blood stem cells in Austria. Austrian Working Party for Stem Cell Transplantation. Austrian Society of Hematology and Oncology.

Allogeneic bone marrow transplantation is limited by the availability of suitable HLA-matched donors and the risk of graft versus host disease (GvHD). In an attempt to overcome these limitations umbilical cord blood (UCB), has become a further alternative. UCB transplantations in Austria were started in 1991.

Highly efficient induction of protective immunity by a vaccinia virus vector defective in late gene expression.

Vaccinia viruses defective in the essential gene coding for the enzyme uracil DNA glycosylase (UDG) do not undergo DNA replication and do not express late genes in wild-type cells. A UDG-deficient vaccinia virus vector carrying the tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) virus prM/E gene, termed vD4-prME, was constructed, and its potential as a vaccine vector was evaluated. High-level expression of the prM/E antigens could be demonstrated in infected complementing cells, and moderate levels were found under noncomplementing conditions.

"Emergency hepatectomy" in a 16-month-old boy with a hepatoblastoma, severe cytomegalovirus-induced pancytopenia, and intractable diarrhea.

A 16-month-old boy presented with massive abdominal enlargement. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed a liver tumor measuring 11 x 11 x 10 cm. Pulmonary metastases were detected by chest computed tomography.

Discrepancy of clinical, radiographic and histopathologic findings in two children with chronic pulmonary graft-versus-host disease after HLA-identical sibling stem cell transplantation.

We report two children who presented with cough and shortness of breath 7-8 months after a matched sibling stem cell transplant (SCT) for chronic myelogenous leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome, respectively. Pulmonary function tests (PFTs) revealed severe airways obstruction (AO). However, radiographic investigations showed no serious abnormalities in the early phase and open lung biopsy revealed only mild lymphocytic bronchiolitis and bronchiolitis obliterans consistent with pulmonary graft-versus-host disease (GVHD).

Treatment of children with anagrelide for thrombocythemia.

Purpose: Essential thrombocythemia (ET) is a rare myeloproliferative disease characterized by hyperproliferation of megakaryocytes and persistent elevation of platelets. Major complications are thrombosis, bleeding, and microvascular occlusive symptoms, sometimes resulting in serious morbidity. In patients with platelet counts > 1000 x 10(9)/l, cytoreduction is important to reduce the risk for thrombotic or hemorrhagic events.

Class restriction of cephalosporin use to control total cephalosporin resistance in nosocomial Klebsiella.

Context: Resistance to most or all cephalosporin antibiotics in Klebsiella species has developed in many European and North American hospitals during the past 2 decades.

Objective: To determine if restriction of use of the cephalosporin class of antibiotics would reduce the incidence of patient infection or colonization by cephalosporin-resistant Klebsiella.

Design: A before-after comparative 2-year trial.

Characterization of Turbid Colloidal Suspensions Using Light Scattering Techniques Combined with Cross-Correlation Methods.

The ability to characterize colloidal suspensions by means of dynamic light scattering is in general limited to systems with negligible contributions from multiple scattering. For larger particle sizes with high scattering contrast this immediately limits the technique to very low concentrations. A promising solution of this problem is to suppress multiple scattering in dynamic light scattering experiments using cross-correlation schemes.

Synchronous radiochemotherapy in unfavorable brain tumors of children and young adults.

The prognosis of patients with incompletely resected malignant brain tumors is almost fatal. In an attempt to improve the outcome of children and young adults with unfavorable brain tumors an intensive multimodal therapeutic strategy was developed combining simultaneous (hyper)fractionated external beam irradiation and conventional adjuvant chemotherapy after initial surgery. 17 patients aged between 2.

Prevention of CNS recurrence in childhood ALL: results with reduced radiotherapy combined with CNS-directed chemotherapy in four consecutive ALL-BFM trials.

Background: The introduction of cranial radiotherapy (CRT) has provided efficient control of overt or subclinical meningeosis in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Especially due to the long-term toxicity of CRT, reduction or elimination of radiotherapy appeared mandatory after cure rates of more than 70% had been achieved in ALL. The Berlin-Frankfurt-Münster (BFM) Study Group initiated several attempts in certain ALL subgroups to omit or reduce CRT while using more CNS-directed chemotherapy but without extended intrathecal treatment during maintenance therapy.

Unrelated 5/6-locus matched umbilical cord blood transplantation in a 23-month-old child with hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis.

A diagnosis of familial hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (FHL) was established in an 18-month-old boy who presented with prolonged fever of unknown origin, severe pancytopenia, hepatosplenomegaly and hypofibrinogenemia. Serum levels of ferritin and soluble interleukin-2 receptor (SIL2R) were highly elevated, and the number of natural killer (NK) cells was markedly decreased. An allogeneic stem cell donor was neither found in the family nor in unrelated donor registries; however, an umbilical cord blood (UCB) donor request revealed a 5/6 HLA-matched UCB.