Glial Heterotopia of the orbit: A rare presentation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Glial heterotopias are rare, benign, congenital, midline, non-teratomatous extracranial glial tissue. They may masquerade as encephalocoele or dermoid cyst and mostly present in nose. Herein, we present an unusual case of glial heterotopia of the orbit with unilateral blindness.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A 6 year-old-boy presented with a progressive painless mass over the nose and medial aspect of the left eye noticed since birth. On examination, the globe was displaced laterally by a firm, regular, mobile, non-pulsatile and non-tender medial mass. The affected eye had profound loss of vision. Computed tomography scan showed a large hypodense mass in the extraconal space with no intracranial connectivity and bony erosion. The child underwent total surgical excision of the mass and histopathological examination confirmed glial heterotopia of the orbit.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Though the incidence of this condition is rare, the need of appropriate diagnosis and management of such mass to prevent the visual and cosmetic deterioration is warranted. To our knowledge this is the first reported case of Glial heterotopia of orbit causing unilateral blindness.</p

The Global Burden of Alveolar Echinococcosis

Human alveolar echinococcosis (AE), caused by the larval stage of the fox tapeworm Echinococcus multilocularis, is amongst the world's most dangerous zoonoses. Transmission to humans is by consumption of parasite eggs which are excreted in the faeces of the definitive hosts: foxes and, increasingly, dogs. Transmission can be through contact with the definitive host or indirectly through contamination of food or possibly water with parasite eggs. We made an intensive search of English, Russian, Chinese and other language databases. We targeted data which could give country specific incidence or prevalence of disease and searched for data from every country we believed to be endemic for AE. We also used data from other sources (often unpublished). From this information we were able to make an estimate of the annual global incidence of disease and disease burden using standard techniques for calculation of DALYs. Our studies suggest that AE results in a median of 18,235 cases globally with a burden of 666,433 DALYs per annum. This is the first estimate of the global burden of AE both in terms of global incidence and DALYs and demonstrates the burden of AE is comparable to several diseases in the neglected tropical disease cluster

Correlation of astrocyte elevated gene‑1, basic‑fibroblast growth factor, beta‑catenin, Ki‑67, tumor necrosis factor‑alfa with prognostic parameters in ductal carcinomas and ductal intraepithelial neoplasms

Background: Breast cancer is the second most frequent cancer in the world. Although it is widely accepted that the etiology of breast cancer includes both genetic and environmental factors, the molecular mechanism of its development and progression remains poorly understood, and thus far, no specific signature of breast cancer gene expression has been reported to allow for patient‑tailored therapy strategies. Hence, it is of great clinical value to further understand the molecular mechanisms underlying the progression of breast cancer and to identify effective early markers for the diagnosis and prognosis of the disease as well as novel therapeutic targets.Materials and Methods: This study was conducted on a total of 90 paraffin‑embedded breast tumor samples. Immunohistochemical stains for astrocyte elevated gene‑1 (AEG‑1), basic‑fibroblast growth factor (b‑FGF), beta‑catenin, Ki‑67, tumor necrosis factor‑α (TNF‑α) were performed on tissue microarray using standard procedures. Each patient age, grade, estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER‑2) status, size, lymphovascular invasion, metastasis of lymph node (LNM), nipple and ductal hyperplasia areas were assessed.Results: We observed significant relationship between the age and LNM or FGF (P = 0.018, 0.035, respectively). The relationship between histological and nuclear grade, LNM, ER, PR, HER‑2 and prognostic parameters was evaluated in cases of ductal carcinomas (DC). There was a significant positive correlation between TNF‑α, size, LNM (P ≤ 0.0001, 0.002, 0.005). We found that significant relationship between AEG‑1 and TNF‑α. There was a significant positive correlation between FGF and Ki‑67 and negative correlation AEG‑1. Although, FGF, TNF‑α, AEG‑1 staining in DC were observed higher than ductal intraepithelial neoplasms, this observation could not statistically (P ≥ 0.05).Conclusions: The present work aims to investigate the relationship between the expression of AEG‑1, b‑FGF, beta‑catenin, Ki‑67, TNF‑α other prognostic parameters in DC and ductal intraepithelial neoplasm. We found a relationship between these factors.Key words: Astrocyte elevated gene‑1, beta‑catenin, basic‑fibroblast growth factor, ductal carcinomas, prognostic parameters, tumor necrosis factor‑