Serum Leptin Levels in Patients with Ocular and Nonocular Behçet's Disease

Aims. To investigate serum leptin levels in Behçet's patients with or without ocular involvement compared with healthy subjects and the relationship between serum leptin and uveitis activity in patients with ocular involvement. Methods. Fifty-seven patients with Behçet's disease and 20 healthy control subjects were included in this study. While 27 patients had ocular involvement (18 had acute uveitis, 9 had inactive ocular involvement), 30 did not have ocular disease. C-reactive protein, alpha 1-antitrypsin, and serum leptin levels were measured in all samples. Results. There was a significant difference between the patients with Behçet's disease and control group for both logarithm of leptin (P = .000) and logarithm of CRP (P = .031). Logarithm of leptin in non-ocular Behçet's patients was significantly higher compared to its level in ocular Behçet's disease and controls (P = .009). There was a significant difference between the patients with active ocular disease and control group (P = .03). Conclusions. Leptin might have a possible role in the pathogenesis of Behçet's disease

Histological Subgroups in Classic Kaposi Sarcoma: A Preliminary Study

Background and Design: Kaposi sarcomas (KS) are vascular tumors with a low malignant potential which include overlapping infectious, immunologic, and neoplastic processes. Recently, many histological subtypes have been defined. Material and Method: In the present study, 151 cutaneous classic KS lesions in 56 patients were retrospectively evaluated with regard to histological subtypes. Determination of the subtypes was based on the predominant histopathological component in the lesion. We examined changes in epidermis and dermis along with intratumoral inflammatory response characteristics in the lesions. By defining histopathological variants of the cases, differences regarding subtypes were investigated. Results: Cases that bear the ordinary characteristics of KS and those that can not be classified otherwise, comprised 82..8% of the study group. Twenty-six cases showed consistency with the subtypes outlined in the literature in terms of their histopathological properties. The most common histological subtype was the lymphangiectatic variant in 7.3% of the cases. Bullous (2.6%), lymphangioma like (2.6%), intravascular (2%), and pyogenic granuloma like (2%) variants were less common. The most uncommon histological subtype was micronodular (0.6%) type. Lymphangiectatic, bullous, intravascular, and pyogenic granuloma like variants were frequently observed in the nodular stage of KSs. Lympangioma like changes were seen to be present in the early KS lesions. Lymphangiectatic type was oftenly associated with bullous component, whereas pyogenic granuloma like type demonstrated superficial ulceration and intense inflammatory response. Lymphangioma like and intravascular types exhibited a characteristic appearance, while other variants were accompanied by components belonging to different subtypes. Conclusion: In KS, histopathological subtypes can develop as a result of different pathological processes. The next stage of the current study, which is one of the largest case series in the literature, will be investigation of the clinical and prognostic characteristics of the variants

An Unusual Anatomic Variation of Dorsal Sensory Branches of the Ulnar Nerve: A Case Report

ABSTRACT In some instances, it is mandatory to know the anatomy of th

Türkiye'nin reel kurlarındaki sürekliliğin sınanması için panel veri yaklaşımı

The PPP hypothesis, which is the basic assumption of many exchange rate determination models, relates the movements in the exchange rates with the price movements in the home and foreign countries. Two methods may be implemented in order to detect the validity of the PPP hypothesis. One of them is to perform unit root tests to the real exchange rates itself. The other method is to implement the unit root tests to the linear combination of the components of the real exchange rates, which means the cointegration techniques. This thesis analyzes the validity of the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) for the Turkish bilateral real exchange rates. For this purpose, we use panel unit root tests along with the Augmented Dickey FullerBirçok döviz kuru modelinin temel varsayımı olan Satınalma Gücü Paritesi (SAGP), döviz kurlarındaki hareketi iç ve dış fiyatlardaki hareketler ile ilişkilendirmektedir. SAGP'nin geçerliliği temel olarak iki yöntem kullanılarak test edilebilir. Bunlardan birisi reel kurlara, diğeri ise reel kurların oluşturan değişkenlerin lineer birleşimine durağanlık testleri, yani birlikte bütünleşme tekniğinin uygulanmasıdır. Bu tezde Türkiye'nin döviz kurları için SAGP'nin geçerliliği test edilecektir. Bu amaçla panel verileri kullanılarak durağanlık testleri kullanılacaktır.M.S. - Master of Scienc