Severe forms of concealed penis without hypospadias: Surgical strategies

Introduction: Concealed penis (CP) may vary in severity and includes megaprepuce (MP) as a variant. Many different surgical strategies have been described in order to maximize penile exposure and to deal with skin deficiency. We describe the strategies that we use to overcome technical problems in severe cases of CP. Materials and Methods: Six consecutive cases of severe CP (including 3 with MP) were treated in a 2-year period between January 2011 and April 2013. These patients were treated using extensive degloving, removal of dysplastic dartos, Alexander's preputial flap, scrotal flaps and skin grafts. Three patients had been previously circumcised. Cases associated with hypospadias, obesity, disorders of sexual differentiation and micropenises were excluded. Results: All six patients attained good results, with good exposure of the penis, ability to void standing with a well-directed flow and reasonable esthetic results. A technical algorithm for the treatment of primary or recurring cases of CP is proposed. Conclusion: Alexander' s distally based ventral preputial flap is a useful technical resource to treat MP cases. Free skin grafts and/or laterally based scrotal flaps may be used to cover the penis after release in severe cases of CP

Penile hair tourniquet resulting in hypospadias failure

Penile hair tourniquet (PHT) is a painless form of penile ischemia, typically seen in toddlers with long-haired mothers, caused by entanglement of hair on the balano-prepucial sulcus, normally associated with circumcision. Its association with hypospadias has been reported only once. A school-aged boy admitted for surgery to treat hypospadias failure was incidentally detected to have PHT and severe hourglass deformity of the penis. Urethral anastomosis and glanuloplasty were done after removal of the constricting ring, without complications. Normal erections were reported during follow up. Treatment may involve urethral reconstruction and penile reimplantation in extreme cases

Quanto custa uma consulta médica especializada para as famílias de pacientes pediátricos no Sistema Único de Saúde?

Nesta pesquisa, estudamos os custos de transporte por consulta ambulatorial em pacientes referenciados para avaliação cirúrgica especializada em um hospital terciário no Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. Trata-se de um estudo descritivo com responsáveis por pacientes pediátricos agendados para consulta de cirurgia pediátrica, questionando fatores ligados ao custo de transporte e de oportunidade (perda de remuneração, alimentação, pagamento de cuidadores para outros filhos, despesas para outros acompanhantes). Aproximadamente metade dos pacientes tinham até 5 anos de idade, cerca de 2/3 apresentavam doenças de resolutividade cirúrgica simples e definitiva e 181 famílias (89,17%) contavam com renda familiar mensal de até R$ 1.999,00. A proporção de famílias beneficiadas por transporte gratuito variou entre 4,26-15,56% para pacientes morando até 100km de distância do hospital (45,83% para pacientes com residência a mais de 100km da instituição). Dos responsáveis, 176 (87,13%) relataram despesas para alimentação, 12 (5,94%) pagavam cuidadores para os outros filhos no dia da consulta e 80 (39,6%) referiram perda do pagamento do dia de trabalho. Dos casos de alta complexidade, 9,33% das mães entrevistadas abriram mão de exercer atividade remunerada regular. As despesas com transporte para uma consulta em cirurgia pediátrica em um hospital de referência do Rio de Janeiro custam em média 4,42% do salário mínimo vigente, com uma média de 217,32 minutos de deslocamento por consulta. Despesas com alimentação e perda de remuneração pela ausência no trabalho também implicam encargos financeiros ou perda de remuneração significativos para o paciente em cada consulta

Contribution of multiparameter flow cytometry immunophenotyping to the diagnostic screening and classification of pediatric cancer.

Pediatric cancer is a relatively rare and heterogeneous group of hematological and non-hematological malignancies which require multiple procedures for its diagnostic screening and classification. Until now, flow cytometry (FC) has not been systematically applied to the diagnostic work-up of such malignancies, particularly for solid tumors. Here we evaluated a FC panel of markers for the diagnostic screening of pediatric cancer and further classification of pediatric solid tumors. The proposed strategy aims at the differential diagnosis between tumoral vs. reactive samples, and hematological vs. non-hematological malignancies, and the subclassification of solid tumors. In total, 52 samples from 40 patients suspicious of containing tumor cells were analyzed by FC in parallel to conventional diagnostic procedures. The overall concordance rate between both approaches was of 96% (50/52 diagnostic samples), with 100% agreement for all reactive/inflammatory and non-infiltrated samples as well as for those corresponding to solid tumors (n = 35), with only two false negative cases diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma and anaplastic lymphoma, respectively. Moreover, clear discrimination between samples infiltrated by hematopoietic vs. non-hematopoietic tumor cells was systematically achieved. Distinct subtypes of solid tumors showed different protein expression profiles, allowing for the differential diagnosis of neuroblastoma (CD56(hi)/GD2(+)/CD81(hi)), primitive neuroectodermal tumors (CD271(hi)/CD99(+)), Wilms tumors (>1 cell population), rhabdomyosarcoma (nuMYOD1(+)/numyogenin(+)), carcinomas (CD45(-)/EpCAM(+)), germ cell tumors (CD56(+)/CD45(-)/NG2(+)/CD10(+)) and eventually also hemangiopericytomas (CD45(-)/CD34(+)). In summary, our results show that multiparameter FC provides fast and useful complementary data to routine histopathology for the diagnostic screening and classification of pediatric cancer

Immunophenotypic identification and chraracterization of pediatric tumor samples.

<p>In panel A, an illustrating example of the gating strategy and bivariate dot plot combinations used for the identification of CD45− tumor cells, CD45− residual stromal cells (e.g. endothelial cells and mesenquimal cells) and infiltrating hematopoietic cells (e.g. neutrophils, B and T cells) is shown. In turn, in panels B to J the immunophenotypic profile of CD45− tumor cells from a neuroblastoma (panels B and H), a PNET (panels C and I) and a rhabdomyossarcoma (panels D and J) tumor are shown together with representative pictures of the histophathological and immunohistochemical profiles of the same tumors stained with hematoxilin & eosin plus cromogranin (neuroblastoma cells in panel E), CD99 (PNET cells in panel F) and _(nu)myogenin (rhabdomyossarcoma cells in panel G).</p

Comparison between multiparameter flow cytometry (MFC) and histopathology plus immunohistochemistry (IH) as regards identification of infiltration by neoplastic cells versus normal/reactive cells.

<p>All 8 samples were obtained from pediatric cancer patients, but they were all negative for the presence of tumor cells by conventional diagnostic approaches. LL: lymphoblastic lymphoma; PNET- primitive neuroectodermal tumor.</p