Gastric outlet obstruction due to adenocarcinoma in a patient with Ataxia-Telangiectasia syndrome: a case report and review of the literature

Background: Ataxia-Telangiectasia syndrome is characterized by progressive cerebellar dysfunction, conjuctival and cutaneous telangiectasias, severe immune deficiencies, premature aging and predisposition to cancer. Clinical and radiographic evaluation for malignancy in ataxia-telangiectasia patients is usually atypical, leading to delays in diagnosis. Case presentation: We report the case of a 20 year old ataxia-telangiectasia patient with gastric adenocarcinoma that presented as complete gastric outlet obstruction. Conclusion: A literature search of adenocarcinoma associated with ataxia-telangiectasia revealed 6 cases. All patients presented with non-specific gastrointestinal complaints suggestive of ulcer disease. Although there was no correlation between immunoglobulin levels and development of gastric adenocarcinoma, the presence of chronic gastritis and intestinal metaplasia seem to lead to the development of gastric adenocarcinoma. One should consider adenocarcinoma in any patient with ataxia-telangiectasia who presents with non-specific gastrointestinal complaints, since this can lead to earlier diagnosis

Production of Heparin-Binding Epidermal Growth Factor–like Growth Factor (HB-EGF) at Sites of Thermal Injury in Pediatric Patients

Fluids that accumulate at wound sites may be an important reservoir of growth factors that promote the normal wound healing response. The presence of heparin-binding growth factors was studied in burn wound fluid (BWF) from 45 pediatric patients who had sustained partial thickness burns. One of the growth factors present was similar to platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) based on its heparin affinity, inhibition of bioactivity by a PDGF antiserum, and detection in a PDGF-AB enzyme-linked iminunosorbent assay. A second growth factor was identified as heparin-binding epidermal growth factor–like growth factor (HB-EGF) based on its heparin affinity, competition with 125I-labeled epidermal growth factor (EGF) for EGF receptor binding, and recognition in biological assays and Western blots by two HB-EGF antisera. Amino acid sequence analysis of one form of this second growth factor verified its identity as an N-terminally truncated form of HB-EGF. Immunohistochemical analysis of partial thickness burns demonstrated the presence of HB-EGF in the advancing epithelial margin, islands of regenerating epithelium within the burn wound, and in the duct and proximal tubules of eccrine sweat glands. HB-EGF in the surface epithelium of burn wounds was uniformally distributed, whereas it was restricted to the basal epithelium in nonburned skin. These data support a role for PDGF and HB-EGF in burn wound healing and suggest that the response to injury includes deposition of HB-EGF and PDGF into blister fluid and a redistribution of HB-EGF in the surface epithelium near the wound site

Letter processing and font information during reading: beyond distinctiveness, where vision meets design

Letter identification is a critical front end of the reading process. In general, conceptualizations of the identification process have emphasized arbitrary sets of distinctive features. However, a richer view of letter processing incorporates principles from the field of type design, including an emphasis on uniformities across letters within a font. The importance of uniformities is supported by a small body of research indicating that consistency of font increases letter identification efficiency. We review design concepts and the relevant literature, with the goal of stimulating further thinking about letter processing during reading

Nanofabrication with Pulsed Lasers

An overview of pulsed laser-assisted methods for nanofabrication, which are currently developed in our Institute (LP3), is presented. The methods compass a variety of possibilities for material nanostructuring offered by laser–matter interactions and imply either the nanostructuring of the laser-illuminated surface itself, as in cases of direct laser ablation or laser plasma-assisted treatment of semiconductors to form light-absorbing and light-emitting nano-architectures, as well as periodic nanoarrays, or laser-assisted production of nanoclusters and their controlled growth in gaseous or liquid medium to form nanostructured films or colloidal nanoparticles. Nanomaterials synthesized by laser-assisted methods have a variety of unique properties, not reproducible by any other route, and are of importance for photovoltaics, optoelectronics, biological sensing, imaging and therapeutics

Cytotoxicity and ion release of alloy nanoparticles

It is well-known that nanoparticles could cause toxic effects in cells. Alloy nanoparticles with yet unknown health risk may be released from cardiovascular implants made of Nickel–Titanium or Cobalt–Chromium due to abrasion or production failure. We show the bio-response of human primary endothelial and smooth muscle cells exposed to different concentrations of metal and alloy nanoparticles. Nanoparticles having primary particle sizes in the range of 5–250 nm were generated using laser ablation in three different solutions avoiding artificial chemical additives, and giving access to formulations containing nanoparticles only stabilized by biological ligands. Endothelial cells are found to be more sensitive to nanoparticle exposure than smooth muscle cells. Cobalt and Nickel nanoparticles caused the highest cytotoxicity. In contrast, Titanium, Nickel–Iron, and Nickel–Titanium nanoparticles had almost no influence on cells below a nanoparticle concentration of 10 μM. Nanoparticles in cysteine dissolved almost completely, whereas less ions are released when nanoparticles were stabilized in water or citrate solution. Nanoparticles stabilized by cysteine caused less inhibitory effects on cells suggesting cysteine to form metal complexes with bioactive ions in media

Subliminal stimuli in the near absence of attention influence top-down cognitive control

Recent research has shown that visual stimuli can influence cognitive control functions, even if subjects are unaware of the identity of the stimuli. However, in those previous studies, subjects actively attended to the location of the subliminal stimuli. Here we assessed the role of endogenous spatial attention in such paradigms. We required subjects to quickly prepare for one of two numerical judgment tasks on the basis of the direction of motion in patches of moving dots presented in cued spatial locations. We found that irrelevant motion patches presented in the uncued spatial locations also influenced task performance. Motion in the uncued patches was weak and did not affect the perception of the cued patches. Further analyses suggested that the effect of priming by the uncued stimuli was present even for subjects who could only discriminate such stimuli at chance level. Three additional experiments confirmed that subjects paid minimal attention to the uncued locations, in that the subjects could not perform simple discriminations of conjunctions of features in those locations