Laparoscopic adrenalectomy in urological centres - the experience of the German Laparoscopic Working Group.

Objective: To evaluate the safety and feasibility of laparoscopic adrenalectomy (LA) performed in several German centres with different laparoscopic experience, as LA has become the gold-standard approach for benign surgical adrenal disorders; however, for solitary metastasis or primary adrenal cancer its precise role is uncertain.

Patients And Methods: The data of 363 patients who underwent a LA were prospectively collected in 23 centres. All centres were stratified into three groups according to their experience: group A (<10 LAs/year), group B (10-20 LAs/year) and group C (>20 LAs/year).

Upregulation of TLR2 and TLR4 in the human adrenocortical cells differentially modulates adrenal steroidogenesis.

Rapid activation of adrenal steroid release plays a pivotal role in an organism's first line of defense during sepsis. Adrenal gland function is often suppressed in critically ill patients and negatively impacts the overall survival rate. Increasingly, experimental and clinical evidence suggests that Toll-like receptors (TLRs), components of the innate immune system, play a key role in the mediation of systemic responses to invading pathogens during sepsis.

Gain in chromosome 8q correlates with early progression in hormonal treated prostate cancer.

Objective: Development and especially hormone refractant progression of prostate cancer are incompletely understood. Clinical studies evaluating genetic aberrations of prior therapy biopsies in correlation with progression data in patients receiving hormone therapy for prostate cancer have not been performed until now.

Methods: After DNA isolation from histological sections of primary prostate cancer biopsies, comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) was performed according to standard protocols.