Primary mediastinal choriocarcinoma

Primary mediastinal choriocarcinoma is a rare entity and is peculiar only to man. Although rigid criteria such as serial biopsies of the gonads are essential to rule out the possibility of such mediastinal tumor as a metastatic lesion, a review of the literature shows that anterior medlastinum is rarely involved by the metastasis from gonadal tumors. The clinical diagnosis of such a tumor can be made by the presence of the triad of chest pain, cough and gynecomastia in a man in the third decade. The prognosis of such a lesion is uniformly hopeless irrespective of the mode of treatment. A case of primary medlastinal choriocarcinoma in a 22-year-old man has been described. This case brings the total number of cases to 16

Quantitative and qualitative differences in subcutaneous adipose tissue stores across lipodystrophy types shown by magnetic resonance imaging

BACKGROUND: Lipodystrophies are characterized by redistributed subcutaneous fat stores. We previously quantified subcutaneous fat by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the legs of two patients with familial partial lipodystrophy subtypes 2 and 3 (FPLD2 and FPLD3, respectively). We now extend the MRI analysis across the whole body of patients with different forms of lipodystrophy. METHODS: We studied five subcutaneous fat stores (supraclavicular, abdominal, gluteal, thigh and calf) and the abdominal visceral fat stores in 10, 2, 1, 1 and 2 female subjects with, respectively, FPLD2, FPLD3, HIV-related partial lipodystrophy (HIVPL), acquired partial lipodystrophy (APL), congenital generalized lipodystrophy (CGL) and in six normal control subjects. RESULTS: Compared with normal controls, FPLD2 subjects had significantly increased supraclavicular fat, with decreased abdominal, gluteal, thigh and calf subcutaneous fat. FPLD3 subjects had increased supraclavicular and abdominal subcutaneous fat, with less severe reductions in gluteal, thigh and calf fat compared to FPLD2 subjects. The repartitioning of fat in the HIVPL subject closely resembled that of FPLD3 subjects. APL and CGL subjects had reduced upper body, gluteal and thigh subcutaneous fat; the APL subject had increased, while CGL subjects had decreased subcutaneous calf fat. Visceral fat was markedly increased in FPLD2 and APL subjects. CONCLUSION: Semi-automated MRI-based adipose tissue quantification indicates differences between various lipodystrophy types in these studied clinical cases and is a potentially useful tool for extended quantitative phenomic analysis of genetic metabolic disorders. Further studies with a larger sample size are essential for confirming these preliminary findings

Pathology of the human pituitary adenomas

This article describes pertinent aspects of histochemical and molecular changes of the human pituitary adenomas. The article outlines individual tumor groups with general, specific and molecular findings. The discussion further extends to the unusual adenomas or carcinomas. The description in this article are pertinent not only for the practicing pathologists who are in the position of making proper diagnosis, but also for the pituitary research scientists who engage in solving basic problems in pituitary neoplasms by histochemistry and molecular biology

Characterization of Cardiac Brain Natriuretic Peptide Release in Patients With Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation Undergoing Left Atrial Ablation

Background-Paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF) is associated with elevated levels of brain natriuretic peptide (BNP). The exact cardiac source and implications of this are currently unknown, as are the effects of left atrial ablation on cardiac BNP release. We sought to investigate BNP levels at different cardiac sites in PAF patients before and after left atrial ablation and compare these with a non-atrial fibrillation control cohort