The Significance of Hemosiderin Deposition in the Lungs and Organs of the Mononucleated Macrophage Resorption System in Infants and Children

Hemosiderin deposition is not often recognized on routine examination with hematoxylin and eosin staining; however, iron stains may be helpful in the evaluation of hemosiderin deposition in infant autopsies. This report describes the data obtained from autopsy of 86 infants and children whose deaths were investigated at the Forensic Medicine Council Bursa Morgue Department from January 2000 to January 2003. A histochemical technique was used to identify hemosiderin in lung, liver and spleen specimens, which was correlated with other descriptive variables such as the reported cause of death, postmortem interval, trauma history, gender, and age. There was a weakly positive but significant correlation between lung and liver hemosiderin scores (Spearman's rank correlation coefficient, rho=0.348, p=0.001); i.e., given an increase in lung hemosiderin scores, an increase in liver hemosiderin scores was also observed. Similarly, a marked positive correlation between spleen and liver hemosiderin scores (Spearman's rank correlation coefficient, rho=0.335, p=0.002) was observed. The probability of spleen hemosiderin-positive cases belonging to the age group under 6 months was found to be 4.3 times greater than those who were hemosiderin-negative (95% confidence interval, 1.6-11.8). After the major differential diagnoses were ruled out, this study demonstrated, that depending on the statistically assessed morphometric grounds, the presence of hemosiderin deposits in the liver and spleen were significantly higher in the age group under 6 months

Soluble vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-1 (sVEGFR-1) is decreased in lung cancer patients showing progression: A pilot study

Tumor growth and metastasis depend on angiogenesis, and the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is known to be one of the most important angiogenic factors although the knowledge about its receptors is limited. We, therefore, investigated the treatment-related changes both in the level of the soluble vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-1 ( sVEGFR-1) in the serum by ELISA and the expression of VEGFR-1 in cancer tissues by immunohistochemistry. The serum levels were studied in 38 lung cancer patients, and 55 control subjects ( 21 benign disease and 34 healthy subjects) before the chemotherapy. The treatment-related changes in serum sVEGFR-1 were evaluated in 15 patients 24 and 48 hours after treatment. In addition to serum analysis, the tissue expressions were evaluated in 32 patients before treatment. The treatment-related changes in tissue VEGFR-1 expressions were evaluated in only 12 patients 24 hours after treatment. We observed no significant difference in terms of serum sVEGFR-1 levels between malignant and nonmalignant groups (p > 0.05). There were no significant differences in the levels of sVEGFR-1 before and after treatment (p > 0.05). However, there was a significant difference between sVEGFR-1 levels in the groups (regressive, stable, progressive) classified according to the response to therapy (p = 0.043). A significant difference also was present between the expression levels of tissue VEGFR-1 in the same groups (p = 0.037). As a conclusion, we suggest that prechemotherapy sVEGFR- 1 can be helpful for prediction of long-term response to therapy, but it should be studied in larger groups to elucidate its benefit in clinics

The Assesment of Cognitive Functions With Neuropsychologic and Neurophysiologic Tests in Diabetes Mellitus

OBJECTIVE: In our study, we aimed to evaluate cognitive dysfunctions in type II diabetes mellitus (DM) regarding duration, prognosis and complications of the disease. We used transcranial doppler (TCD) ultrasonography to evaluate cerebral perfusion and hemodynamics and performed mini-mental state examination (MMSE), neuropsychometric tests (NPT), event related evoked potentials (ERP), auditory and visual P300 wave latancies. METHODS: 48 patients (29 females and 19 males) with type 2 DM, aged between 40-65 (mean 53) years, and 20 normal (10 males, 10 females) cases as control group were involved in the study. Routine biochemical tests, cranial tomography (CT) imaging methods and the tests which evaluate cognitive functions, MMSE, NPT, and ERP were performed in subjects. Mean current speed and pulsatility index were measured in 62 patients by using TCD. RESULTS: The scores of MMSE, auditory and visual P300 waves mean latancies were found statistically significant in patients with DM when compared to control group. Although there was no statistical significance in mean cerebral artery velocity values between two groups, there was significant correlation between pulsatility indexes. Especially verbal, visual memory and concentration modalities of NPT was significalty affected when compared to normal control group. CONCLUSION: In previous studies, different results have been reported about effects of DM on cognitive functions. We consider that this study may differ from others, as it was carried out on a group of middle aged diabetes subjects and many modalities associated with cognition were evaluated together. We also meant to draw attention to the possibility that, independent from other risk factors, diabetes mellitus may have a memory and attention related effect on cognition, and that chronic diseases such as diabetes may play a critical role in the development of dementi