Primary plasmacytoma of the cranial vault: a case report

We report one case of a 78-year-old woman who referred to our hospital because of a progressive right hemiparesis. On clinical examination a painless large soft mass in the left parietal region was observed. CT and MRI revealed an extra-axial mass in the in the left fronto-temporo-parietal region. The lesion was totally excised despite the bleeding tendency. Histology disclosed the presence of a plasmacytoma. Postoperative, the patient developed an epidural hematoma that required immediate evacuation. On further investigation active tuberculosis was detected. On follow up examination 1 year later no tumor recurrence or evidence of multiple myeloma was detected

Intracranial metastasis from primary transitional cell carcinoma of female urethra: case report & review of the literature

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Transitional cell carcinoma (TCC) of the female urethra is a rare urological malignancy, and intracranial metastasis of this cancer has not yet been reported in the literature. This review is intended to present a case of multiple intracranial metastasis in a female patient with a remote history of primary urethral TCC.</p> <p>Case Presentation</p> <p>A 49-year-old woman, presented with a prolapsed mass in urethral orifice that was diagnosed as primary urethral TCC with distant lung and multiple bone metastases. The patient subsequently underwent chemotherapy under various regimens. A year later, the patient developed headache and vomiting which as was found to be due to multiple intracranial metastasis. The patient underwent surgical resection of the largest lesion located on the cerebellum, and consecutively gamma knife radiosurgery was performed for other small-sized lesions. Pathological examination of the resected mass revealed a metastatic carcinoma from a known urethral TCC. Serial work-up of systemic metastasis revealed concomitant aggravation of lung, spleen, and liver metastasis. The patient died of lung complication 2 months after the diagnosis of brain metastasis.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>To the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported case of cerebral metastasis from primary urethral TCC, with pathological confirmation. As shown in intracranial metastasis of other urinary tract carcinoma, this case occurred in the setting of uncontrolled systemic disease and led to dismal prognosis in spite of aggressive interventional modalities.</p

Meningioma grading based on positron emission tomography: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Introduction: Meningiomas are the most common central nervous system tumor in adults. Knowledge of the tumor grade can guide optimal treatment timing and shape personalized follow-up strategies. Positron emission tomography (PET) has been utilized for the metabolic assessment of various intracranial space-occupying lesions. Herewith, we set out to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of PET for the noninvasive assessment of meningioma's grade. Materials and methods: The Medline, Scopus and Cochrane databases were systematically searched in March 2022 for studies that evaluated the sensitivity and specificity of PET compared to the gold standard of histological diagnosis in the grading of meningiomas. Summary statistics will be calculated and scatter plots, summary curve from the HSROC model and posterior predictions by empirical Bayes estimates will be presented. Results: Five studies consisting of 242 patients with a total of 196 low-grade (Grade 1) and 46 high grade (Grade 2/3) meningiomas were included in our analysis. Three of the included studies used 18F-FDG, one study used 18F-FLT and one used(Whiting et al., 2011) 18 F-FET as PET tracers. The pooled sensitivity was 76% (95% CI: 52%–91%) and the pooled specificity was 89% (95% CI: 83%–93%). The diagnostic odds ratio was 27.17 (95% CI: 9.22–80.06), the positive likelihood ratio was 7.18 (95% CI: 4.54–11.34) and the negative likelihood ratio was 0.26 (95% CI: 0.11–0.61). Conclusion: PET is a promising and viable option as a noninvasive imaging tool to differentiate the meningioma grades. However, currently it cannot overtake the gold standard of histological grade confirmation. More studies are required for further validation and refinement of this imaging technique and assessment of other radiotracers as well

MtDNA nucleotide diversity (<i>π</i>), haplotype diversity (<i>h</i>), haplotype richness (<i>H</i>_R), private haplotype (<i>H</i>_P) counts, their standard deviations (<i>SD</i> π, <i>SD h</i>, <i>H</i>_Rstd, and <i>H</i>_Pstd) and standardized to the smallest sample size for both contemporary (<i>g</i> = 6) and historic (<i>g</i> = 5) samples using ADZE rarefaction, Tajima’s <i>D</i>, and Fu’s <i>Fs</i>.

<p>SWE = Sweden; NOR = Norway; MNG = Mongolia; RUS = Russia; AK = Alaska; YT = Yukon; NT = Northwest Territories; NU = Nunavut; BC = British Columbia; AB = Alberta; SK = Saskatchewan; MB = Manitoba; ON = Ontario; QC/NL = Quebec-Labrador; MT = Montana; WY = Wyoming; ID = Idaho; CA = California.</p

Phylogeography and Post-Glacial Recolonization in Wolverines (<i>Gulo gulo</i>) from across Their Circumpolar Distribution

<div><p>Interglacial-glacial cycles of the Quaternary are widely recognized in shaping phylogeographic structure. Patterns from cold adapted species can be especially informative - in particular, uncovering additional glacial refugia, identifying likely recolonization patterns, and increasing our understanding of species’ responses to climate change. We investigated phylogenetic structure of the wolverine, a wide-ranging cold adapted carnivore, using a 318 bp of the mitochondrial DNA control region for 983 wolverines (<i>n</i> = 209 this study, <i>n</i> = 774 from GenBank) from across their full Holarctic distribution. Bayesian phylogenetic tree reconstruction and the distribution of observed pairwise haplotype differences (mismatch distribution) provided evidence of a single rapid population expansion across the wolverine’s Holarctic range. Even though molecular evidence corroborated a single refugium, significant subdivisions of population genetic structure (0.01< Φ_ST <0.99, <i>P</i><0.05) were detected. Pairwise Φ_ST estimates separated Scandinavia from Russia and Mongolia, and identified five main divisions within North America - the Central Arctic, a western region, an eastern region consisting of Ontario and Quebec/Labrador, Manitoba, and California. These data are in contrast to the nearly panmictic structure observed in northwestern North America using nuclear microsatellites, but largely support the nuclear DNA separation of contemporary Manitoba and Ontario wolverines from northern populations. Historic samples (c. 1900) from the functionally extirpated eastern population of Quebec/Labrador displayed genetic similarities to contemporary Ontario wolverines. To understand these divergence patterns, four hypotheses were tested using Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC). The most supported hypothesis was a single Beringia incursion during the last glacial maximum that established the northwestern population, followed by a west-to-east colonization during the Holocene. This pattern is suggestive of colonization occurring in accordance with glacial retreat, and supports expansion from a single refugium. These data are significant relative to current discussions on the conservation status of this species across its range.</p></div

Historic and contemporary Holarctic distribution of wolverines and sampling localities.

<p>Historic and current distribution of wolverines in Eurasia (adapted from National Geographic Society <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0083837#pone.0083837-National1" target="_blank">[116]</a>) and North America (adapted from COSEWIC <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0083837#pone.0083837-COSEWIC2" target="_blank">[115]</a>), and sampled localities from Wilson et al. <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0083837#pone.0083837-Wilson2" target="_blank">[45]</a> - <i>triangle</i>; Walker et al. <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0083837#pone.0083837-Walker1" target="_blank">[15]</a> - <i>star</i>; Tomasik and Cook <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0083837#pone.0083837-Tomasik1" target="_blank">[55]</a> - <i>inverted triangle</i>; Cegelski et al. <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0083837#pone.0083837-Cegelski1" target="_blank">[49]</a> - <i>solid circle</i>; Schwartz et al. <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0083837#pone.0083837-Schwartz2" target="_blank">[60]</a> - <i>solid square</i>; Frances <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0083837#pone.0083837-Frances1" target="_blank">[59]</a> - <i>diamond</i>; Zigouris et al. <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0083837#pone.0083837-Zigouris1" target="_blank">[51]</a> - <i>open circle</i>; Rochnov and Meschersky unpub. - <i>open square</i>; New contemporary samples - <i>plus sign</i>; and New historic samples - <i>x symbol</i>.</p