Umbilical discharge - An extremely rare presentation

Umbilical discharge and dermoid cyst of ovary are quiet commonly encountered problems in the outpatient departments. However, dermoid cyst presenting as a cause of umbilical discharge is extremely rare, and we could find only one case reported in literature so far. A 20-year-old lady presented with painful umbilical swelling and purulent discharge from umbilicus for the last 2 months. A 1 cm×2 cm sprouting granulation tissue with purulent discharge was found at the umbilicus with surrounding erythema. The dilemma in diagnosis was not resolved with routine investigations and imaging studies. On surgical exploration, a fistulous tract was found extending from the umbilicus to the enlarged right ovary. The diagnosis of benign teratoma of ovary with sinus tract up to umbilicus was made on histopathology. The rarity of this case makes its reporting further relevant, considering the differential diagnosis of umbilical discharge or presentations of dermoid cyst of ovary

Assessment of viral and non-viral gene transfer into adult rat brains using HSV-1, calcium phosphate and PEI-based methods

CNS gene transfer could provide new approaches to the modelling of neurodegenerative diseases and devising potential therapies. One such disorder is Parkinson’s disease (PD), in which dysfunction of several different metabolic processes has been implicated. Here we review the literature on gene transfer systems based on herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) and non-viral polyethyleneimine (PEI) and calcium phosphate nanoparticle methods. We also assess the usefulness of various CNS gene delivery methods and present some of our own data to exemplify such usefulness. Our data result from vectors stereotaxically introduced to the substantia nigra (SN) of adult rats and evaluated 1 week and/or 1 month post injection using histochemical methods to assess recombinant ß-galactosidase enzyme activity. Gene transfer using PEI or calcium phosphate-mediated transfections was observed for both methods and PEI was comparable to that of HSV-1 amplicon. Our data show that the amplicon delivery was markedly increased when packaged with a helper virus and was similar to the expression profile achieved with a full-size replication-defective HSV-1 recombinant (8117/43). We also examine whether PEI or HSV-1 amplicon-mediated gene transfer could facilitate assessment of the biological effects induced by a dominant negative FGF receptor-1 mutant to model the reduced FGF signalling thought to occur in Parkinson’s disease