Nocardia farcinica brain abscess: a case report and review of the literature

WOS: 000227230100015PubMed: 15632997Nocardia infection is not rare as generally been assumed and its mortality rate is high. It is isolated from plants and soil in most regions of the worid. The hosts usually have predisposing conditions and the infection is acquired through the respiratory tract or skin. Nocardial organisms have a tendency to disseminate hematogenously from the primary site of infection to brain, kidney, joints, bones and eyes. Sulfonamides are preferred empirically for the treatment. Because of high relapse rates, the treatment must be continued for 12 months. In nocardia farcinica infection, the characteristic resistance pattern to cephalosporines must be kept in mind. In this article, a rare case of nocardia farcinica infection with a solitary cerebral abscess is presented and the literature is reviewed

A rare case of uterine rupture due to a placental site trophoblastic tumour in the rudimentary horn

[No abstract available

Vitamin C is effective for the prevention and regression of endometriotic implants in an experimentally induced rat model of endometriosis.

AbstractObjectiveEndometriosis is a chronic inflammatory disease pathologically defined as the presence of endometrial-like tissue outside the uterine cavity. It is one of the most important diseases affecting women of reproductive age. The process of endometriotic implant growth is mediated by many complex interactions of immunologic, hormonal, genetic, and environmental mediators. Vitamin C (ascorbic acid), besides playing a role in preventing invasion and metastasis, is an antioxidant having anti-inflammatory and -angiogenic effects. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effect of vitamin C on the prevention and regression of endometriotic implants in a rat model of endometriosis.Materials and MethodsThis was a prospective, comparative, experimental animal study. After endometriotic implants were induced simultaneously, rats were divided into three groups. Group A was given 500 mg/kg of intravenous vitamin C every 2 days, starting immediately after implantation (n = 11). All rats had a second operation 21 days after the initial one and had the lesion volumes measured. Group B was given 500 mg/kg of intravenous vitamin C every 2 days, starting 21 days after this operation (n = 11). All rats were sacrificed 21 days after the third operation. Implant volume, weight measurements, and histopathological evaluation of the lesions were carried out. Group A received vitamin C throughout the study, while Group C (n = 11) was not given any medication. The findings in the three groups were compared.ResultsAt the second laparotomy after the induction, Group A had the smallest implant volume with a statistically significant difference compared to Group B (p = 0.012). The end-of-study volumes of endometriotic implants of group B were significantly smaller than the first volumes (p < 0.05).ConclusionIntravenous vitamin C treatment might have a suppressive effect on the prevention of endometriotic implant induction and regression of endometriotic implant volumes

Assessment of Noninvasive Methods for Prediction of Fibrosis in Patients with Chronic Hepatitis B

Noninvasive markers of liver fibrosis have been most extensively studied. The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the diagnostic accuracies of some of these simple fibrosis tests, aspartate aminotrasferase platelet ratio (APRI), age platelet (AP) index, FIB-4 score and aspartate aminotrasferase (AST)/alanin aminotrasferase (ALT) ratio (AAR) in patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB). Eighty male and 34 female patients were included into the study. Liver biopsy of CHB patients were evaluated histologically and significant fibrosis was defined with Scheurer fibrosis score 2 or more. All these test results were compared with liver histology. Significant fibrosis was detected in 34 patients. Older age, high serum AST and gama-glutamil transferase levels and low platelet count were found as a predictive risk factors for signficant fibrosis (p< 0.05). Only older age was found independent risk factor by multivariate analysis (p< 0.001). In patients with significant fibrosis, high levels of mean FIB-4 score, AP index and APRI were detected (p< 0.05). Area under receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of FIB-4 score, AP index, APRI and AAR for predicting significant fibrosis were 0.827, 0.788, 0.729 and 0.580, respectively. Existance or exclusion of significant fibrosis was reliably predicted by FIB-4 score, AP index, APRI and AAR in 75%, 77%, 33% and 67% of the patients, respectively. In conclusion, FIB-4 score and AP index were found to be the most suitable scores for predicting existance or exclusion of significant fibrosis in CHB patients. Age was found to be a significant factor indicating the presence of fibrosis, therefore it was thought that, scores using age as a component, might be more succesfull for predicting fibrosis

Aspartate Aminotransferase to Platelet Ratio Index for the Evaluation of Fibrosis in Chronic Viral Hepatitis

The aspartate aminotransferase to platelet ratio index (APRI), developed for the diagnosis of significant liver fibrosis, and is calculated by the simple parameters used for the routine follow-up of the chronic hepatitis patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate the value of APRI for predicting significant fibrosis in chronic hepatitis B (CHB) and chronic hepatitis C (CHC) patients. CHB and CHC patients who were admitted to our clinic and were performed liver biopsy between 1999 to 2005 were included into the study. APRI values of 0.5 or less and greater than 1.5 were evaluated for predicting significant fibrosis. Fibrosis was considered to be insignificant in cases with scores 0 to 1 and significant in cases with scores 2 and 3. Ninety-seven male and 58 female patients were included into the study. CHB was present in 114 patients and CHC was present in 41 patients. Average Knodell and fibrosis score of the patients were 8.5 ± 3.6 and 1.3 ± 1.0, respectively. Significant fibrosis was detected in 50 of 155 patients and 34 of them were infected with CHB. CHC were detected in rest of them. Average age, serum gama-glutamyl-transpeptidase, Knodell scores and thrombocytopenia were detected statistically high in patients with significant fibrosis (p 1.5 (p 1.5 classified correctly %31 of patients with and without significant fibrosis. In conclusion, APRI can not replace liver biopsy for the detection of significant fibrosis in chronic hepatitis patients, but it might be helpful in cases in which liver biopsy could not be performed