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

SS-31 and NMN: Two paths to improve metabolism and function in aged hearts

The effects of two different mitochondrial-targeted drugs, SS-31 and NMN, were tested on Old mouse hearts. After treatment with the drugs, individually or Combined, heart function was examined by echocardiography. SS-31 partially reversed an age-related decline in diastolic function while NMN fully reversed an age-related deficiency in systolic function at a higher workload. Metabolomic analysis revealed that both NMN and the Combined treatment increased nicotinamide and 1-methylnicotinamide levels, indicating greater NA

Assay precision and risk of misclassification at rule-out cut-offs for high-sensitivity cardiac troponin

Clinical trials and guidelines support the use of very low high-sensitivity cardiac troponin (hs-cTn) results to rule-out a myocardial infarction (MI) ( 1) ). The International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine Committee on Clinical Applications of Cardiac Biomarkers committee, through a modeling approach, suggests assays need to have a lower limit near 3 ng/L and an analytical variation of 10% below 7 ng/L if these low values are to perform consistently in practice ( 2) ). Our objectives for the present study were to assess: i) if any type of instrument or individual instrument could achieve a coefficient of variation (CV) of ≤10% at very low hs-cTn cut-offs (i.e., targets) recommended in clinical pathways; ii) the frequency of results at the hs-cTn target, above the target and below the target, with the latter group representing potential misclassification to the low risk group where the target level would in the intermediate risk range.<br/

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

Mechanistic Studies on the Copper-Catalyzed N-Arylation of Amides

The copper-catalyzed N-arylation of amides, i.e., the Goldberg reaction, is an efficient method for the construction of products relevant to both industry and academic settings. Herein, we present mechanistic details concerning the catalytic and stoichiometric N-arylation of amides. In the context of the catalytic reaction, our findings reveal the importance of chelating diamine ligands in controlling the concentration of the active catalytic species. The consistency between the catalytic and stoichiometric results suggests that the activation of aryl halides occurs through a 1,2-diamine-ligated copper(I) amidate complex. Kinetic studies on the stoichiometric N-arylation of aryl iodides using 1,2-diamine ligated Cu(I) amidates also provide insights into the mechanism of aryl halide activation.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (GM 58160)American Chemical SocietyMerck & Co., Inc.Novartis (Firm