Neurocutaneous syndrome with a ventricular tumor

It is reported on a 19 year-old female patient with a mild mental retardation and a neurocutaneous syndrome. A tumour of a lateral ventricle had caused a partial blockade of the Foramen of Monro without symptoms of brain pressure. The patient shows lesions on the skin corresponding to a neurofibromatosis. Neurologically there was a choreatic syndrome, which can occur in transitional forms from neurofibromatosis to tuberous sclerosis (TS) of the brain. Psychologically a psychorganic syndrome, typical for TS, with disturbances of affectivity and motive developed. There was no essential improvement of the neurological and psychical symptoms by surgical removal of the brain tumour nor were there changes in the EEG except for an acceleration of the basic rhythm.     

Pathological visual field and brain tumor]

The general relationships between an operatively or autoptically localized tumor and the visual field determined by means of ikineticer perimetry are investigated, the patient stock being a total of 1756 neurosurgical brain-tumor inpatients. Examination of the visual field was possible with four fifths of the brain-tumor patients. Hemianopic, quadrantanopsic, or scotomatous defects of a topically localizable nature could be found in almost one third of the total patient stock available for examination. The clinically particularly interesting criteria of localization of homonymous-hemianopsia defects such as macular sparing and incongruence/congruence of visual field changes should be of no importance to the localization within the visual pathway of brain-tumor patients.     

Perceptual enhancement of tumor targets in chest X-ray images

Under tachistoscopic viewing conditions, precuing the location of potential lung tumorlargets in chest X-ray images was less effective than precuing followed by bounding the region of interest (ROI) with a circle directly on the image. Detection performance increased as the image was systematically masked so that its size approximated that of the circled ROI. When viewing time was extended to allow shifts in eye position, circling the ROI was found to restrict the dispersion of fixations and increase the accuracy of fixating the target tumor. When targets were placed outside the ROI, the circle inhibited their detection relative to detection of targets inside the circled region. These findings suggest that cuing by circling restricts target detection to the ROI, and by doing so reduces the interfering effects of outside distractors that compete with the target for attention.     

Hidden reality: sexual sphere in brain tumor patients

Most reports emphasize that tumors and their treatments affect sexual function. To date, no studies have focused on sexual functioning in patients with brain tumors. Our study’s objective is to describe the sexual sphere of patients with brain tumors and examine the possible differences between patients who reported sexual dysfunctions and those who did not with respect to their psychological and functional status. We tested 46 patients with brain tumors. We used an ad hoc questionnaire to assess patients’ subjective perception of their own sexual sphere. To assess patients’ psychological status, we used the following questionnaires: Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale; Psychological Distress Inventory; EORTC QLQ-C30; EORTC QLQ-BN20. Fifty-eight percent of patients reported sexual disturbance. Our data showed that a lack of or decrease in sexual desire is the most common sexual problem reported by our patients (56%). Patients with sexual problems reported higher levels of anxiety and depression and a worse self-reported quality of life (QoL) than did those who did not perceive adverse changes in their sexual sphere. In addition, we found that patients with a better performance status (KPS) reported more changes in sexual behaviors than did those who had performance difficulties. Of the patients, 15.2% received information regarding possible changes in the sexual sphere by physicians. Additionally, 10.8 of 15.2% of the patients reported having explicitly requested information from physicians. The study demonstrated a relation between QoL and sexual function. Therefore, it would be important to encourage clinicians to ask questions regarding patients’ sexual issues, thus providing them with an opportunity to expose their difficulties and receive adequate support.     

载体介导P53基因在肿瘤治疗中的应用

P53肿瘤抑制基因参与细胞周期调控,在防止癌变过程中起着重要作用,用不同的载体如:脂质体、腺病毒载体、腺相关病毒载体、纳米载体等转入不同细胞,均可产生抑制肿瘤生长,到目前为止,所以这些载体均存在一些缺陷.     

Performance-based and parent ratings of attention in children treated for a brain tumor: The significance of radiation therapy and tumor location on outcome

Children are at increased risk for cognitive difficulties following the diagnosis and treatment of a brain tumor. Radiation therapy (RT) and tumor location are commonly-cited predictors of neurocognitive functioning. Disruptions to foundational neurocognitive processes such as attention, working memory, and processing speed underlie declines on measures of general intellectual functioning. While several studies have examined visual sustained attention in pediatric brain tumor patients, auditory sustained attention has yet to be examined. This study employs a longitudinal design to examine performance-based and parent ratings of attention in children undergoing surgical resection of a brain tumor (n = 29) and treated with (n = 11) or without (n = 18) RT at 6.79 months post-surgery (baseline) and then again at 30.56 months post-surgery (follow-up). The measures include an auditory continuous performance test (CPT) and parent ratings of attention and hyperactivity on a behavior rating scale. Ultimately, children treated with and without RT performed similarly on performance-based and parent ratings of attention. However, the performance on the auditory CPT differed according to tumor location, with children with infratentorial tumors committing more inattention and inhibitory control errors compared to children with supratentorial tumors. Parent ratings did not differ according to tumor location, and parent ratings and auditory sustained attention performance are not significantly correlated. The findings are interpreted in the context of neurocognitive and brain development.     

Electrolyte-water balance and acid-base equilibrium in brain tumor patients]

Electrolyte variations, water-balance disturbances, and acid-base equilibrium disorders observed in patients with brain tumors are due, in the majority of cases, to increases in intracranial pressure and, in a relatively small number of cases, to the particular location of the tumor. Severe pathological pictures are not, in general, observed until the ailment has advanced to a critical state. The authors, after describing the clinical pictures of the various forms of acid-base equilibrium disorders, also discuss methods of treatment. Disturbances of water balance are closely associated with the electrolyte metabolism. Consequently, it is necessary that, if a dehydrating form of therapy is used, careful attention should be given to the corresponding parameters. Disturbances of iatrogenic origin tend to produce particularly adverse effects in brain tumor patients.     

载体介导P53基因在肿瘤治疗中的应用

P53肿瘤抑制基因参与细胞周期调控,在防止癌变过程中起着重要作用,用不同的载体如:脂质体、腺病毒载体、腺相关病毒载体、纳米载体等转入不同细胞,均可产生抑制肿瘤生长,到目前为止,所以这些载体均存在一些缺陷。     

Anorexia nervosa and brain tumor in a 14-year-old girl

A 14-year-old girl with anorexia nervosa (AN) was found to have an intracranial neoplasm. Atypical psychological symptoms prompted further evaluation, including electroencephalogram and neuroimaging, which revealed a sellar and suprasellar mass. This patient had an eating disorder and a brain tumor, which appear to be two unrelated conditions. However, it remains unclear how each affected the other. The diagnosis of AN, like all other psychiatric disorders, requires that possible medical etiologies and coexisting medical problems be excluded. AN and other eating disorders are particularly difficult to diagnose in children and adolescents because they often do not present in the manner typical of adults. Perceptual and cognitive disturbances associated with AN are difficult to evaluate because children and adolescents normally change over time as they progress through different stages of development. Therefore, it is particularly important to evaluate for the presence of medical conditions when a diagnosis of an eating disorder is made in a child or adolescent.     

Pheochromocytoma as a catecholamine producing tumor: implications for clinical practice

Pheochromocytomas are catecholamine-producing tumors presenting with various clinical symptoms, but mostly with headache, sweating, palpitations and hypertension. If not properly diagnosed, secretion of catecholamines may lead to fatal cardiovascular consequences. Biochemical testing for pheochromocytoma should be performed not only in symptomatic subjects or in subjects with adrenal incidentaloma but also in subjects with a genetic predisposition for pheochromocytoma (multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2, Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) syndrome, neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF 1)and mutations of succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) genes). Once a pheochromocytoma is proven, computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and functional imaging with [(123)I]-MIBG may be used for tumor localization. Adequate medical pre-treatment is essential for successful operation which is performed in most cases by laparoscopy. After tumor removal, further follow-up is necessary due to possible recurrence. Although prognosis after tumor resection is excellent, a significant proportion of pheochromocytomas recur, some as metastases. Thus, appropriate follow-up is mandatory.     

Stress conditioning in mice: alterations in immunity and tumor growth

The neuroendocrine and autonomic nervous systems are known regulators of brain-immune interaction. However, the functional significance of this interaction under stress is not fully understood. We investigated the effect of a stress paradigm by applying electric foot shock followed by three reminders, on behavior, immune parameters, and lymphoma tumor growth. Male C3H mice were divided into two groups: Group 1-exposed to electric foot shock followed by three reminders, and Group 2-untreated (controls). Sets of mice underwent the elevated plus maze, staircase, and hot plate tests. After foot shock, natural killer (NK) cell activity, and lymphocyte proliferation were measured. In addition, sets of mice were either vaccinated twice with B-cell lymphoma 38C-13 immunoglobulin for determination of anti-idiotype (Id) antibodies in sera, or inoculated with tumor cells and monitored for tumor development and survival time. Mice exposed to electric foot shock followed by the three reminders had higher NK cell activity, levels of anti-Id antibodies, and a higher proliferation rate of splenocytes in response to mitogens, than the control mice. The exposed mice also showed attenuated tumor growth. Thus, the stress paradigm inhibited tumor development and lead to some immune changes that were not accompanied by behavioral changes.     

Executive functions and social skills in survivors of pediatric brain tumor

Medical advances have resulted in increased survival rates for children with brain tumors. Consequently, issues related to survivorship have become more critical. The use of multimodal treatment, in particular cranial radiation therapy, has been associated with subsequent cognitive decline. Specifically, deficits in executive functions have been reported in survivors of various types of pediatric brain tumor. Survivors are left with difficulties, particularly in self-monitoring, initiation, inhibition, and planning, to name a few. Another domain in which survivors of pediatric brain tumor have been reported to show difficulty is that of social skills. Parents, teachers, and survivors themselves have reported decreased social functioning following treatment. Deficits in executive functions and social skills are likely interrelated in this population, as executive skills are needed to navigate various aspects of social interaction; however, this has yet to be studied empirically. Twenty-four survivors of pediatric brain tumor were assessed using a computerized task of executive functions, as well as paper-and-pencil measures of social skills and real-world executive skills. Social functioning was related to a specific aspect of executive functions, that is, the survivors' variability in response time, such that inconsistent responding was associated with better parent-reported and survivor-reported social skills, independent of intellectual abilities. Additionally, parent-reported real-world global executive abilities predicted parent-reported social skills. The implications of these findings for social skills interventions and future research are discussed.     

Brain tumor detection using fusion of hand crafted and deep learning features

The perilous disease in the worldwide now a days is brain tumor. Tumor affects the brain by damaging healthy tissues or intensifying intra cranial pressure. Hence, rapid growth in tumor cells may lead to death. Therefore, early brain tumor diagnosis is a more momentous task that can save patient from adverse effects. In the proposed work, the Grab cut method is applied for accurate segmentation of actual lesion symptoms while Transfer learning model visual geometry group (VGG-19) is fine-tuned to acquire the features which are then concatenated with hand crafted (shape and texture) features through serial based method. These features are optimized through entropy for accurate and fast classification and fused vector is supplied to classifiers. The presented model is tested on top medical image computing and computer-assisted intervention (MICCAI) challenge databases including multimodal brain tumor segmentation (BRATS) 2015, 2016, and 2017 respectively. The testing results with dice similarity coefficient (DSC) achieve 0.99 on BRATS 2015, 1.00 on BRATS 2015 and 0.99 on BRATS 2017 respectively.     

Chronic restraint stress impairs T-cell immunity and promotes tumor progression in mice

Long-term exposure to stressful situations can affect the immune system. The T-cell response is an important component of anti-tumoral immunity. Hence, impairment of the immune function induced by a chronic stressor has been postulated to alter the immunosurveillance of tumors, thus leading to a worse neoplastic prognosis. Here, we show that chronic restraint stress affects T-cell mediated immunity in mice. This was evidenced by a decrease of mitogen-induced T-cell proliferation, a reduction in CD4(+)T lymphocyte number and a decrease of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) and Interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) production in stressed mice. Additionally, mice subjected to chronic restraint stress displayed an enhancement of tumor growth in a syngeneic lymphoma model, i.e. an increase of tumor proliferation and a reduction of animal survival. Finally, stressed mice had a reduced specific cytotoxic response against these tumor cells. These results suggest that chronic exposure to stress promotes cancer establishment and subsequent progression, probably by depressing T-cell mediated immunity. The T-cell immunity impairment as well as the tumor progression enhancement emphasize the importance of the therapeutic management of stress to improve the prognosis of cancer patients.     

慢性病的临床特点及其合理对策——以癌症治疗康复实践为例

本文勾勒出了慢性病与急性及传染性疾病不同的临床特点及具体表现;认为过去惯用的因果律及线性思维对它是苍白无力的,它需要新的思维与哲学指导;指出慢性病治疗目的与侧重亦不同;强调对于慢性病,医师与患者都有个适应过程,都需要做好角色的调整,且就如何做好调整作了探讨.     

Maternal separation in early life impairs tumor immunity in adulthood in the F344 rat

Neonatal stress alters the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis in rodents, such that, when these animals are exposed to stress as adults they hypersecrete corticosterone. Given that glucocorticoids are immunosuppressive, we examined the impact of maternal separation on HPA axis reactivity, natural killer (NK) cytotoxicity, and tumor growth in Fischer 344 rats following chronic restraint stress in adulthood. Pups underwent a chronic stress protocol whereby they were separated from their dams for 3 h on postnatal days 1-21. In adulthood, corticosterone responses were assessed following exposure to chronic (6 days for 10 h) restraint stress. Rats allocated to the chronic stress condition were inoculated with MADB106 tumor cells on day 4 of the restraint protocol. Blood was assessed for NK cytotoxicity on the final day of the chronic restraint protocol, and tumor colonization was assessed 3 weeks thereafter. Maternal separation impaired developmental weight gain (P < 0.05), depressed NK cytotoxicity (P < 0.05), and increased tumor colonization in the presence of chronic restraint stress in adulthood (P < 0.00 l). These findings occurred independently of circulating plasma corticosterone as only adult stress exposure potentiated corticosterone responses (P < 0.05). Our findings indicate that maternal separation and chronic stress can impair NK cytotoxicity and hence tumor immunity, but these effects are not directly mediated by perturbations in HPA axis function.