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If diagnosed early, retinoblastoma is a highly curable cancer. Conservative treatment options have significantly improved in the last decades. The main aims in the management of retinoblastoma are maintaining the eye and reducing the systemic toxicity. A combination of local treatments, systemic and/or peri-ocular chemotherapy, external beam radiation, and enucleation have been used to successfully treat the tumour. Our data [ http://neu.sagepub.com/content/28/1/53.full ] confirm the usefulness of high-resolution brain and orbit MRI in combination with clinical examinations in detecting possible risk factors for metastasis in advanced stages retinoblastomas leading to correct “customized” treatments. In particular, pre-laminar optic nerve and scleral infiltration suspected at MRI were strongly associated with the histology findings, and overall choroid provided good performances in sensitivity, NPV and accuracy. LEICR sign could be included in optic nerve evaluation at MRI, and ...

Experience and Clinical Outcome in 80 Patients link to the article BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE:  Chemonucleolysis represents a minimally invasive percutaneous technique characterized by an intradiskal injection of materials under fluoroscopic or CT guidance. Recently, a substance based on radiopaque gelified ethanol has been introduced. The purpose of this study was to describe the indications, procedure, safety, and efficacy of radiopaque gelified ethanol in the percutaneous treatment of cervical and lumbar disk herniations. MATERIALS AND METHODS:  Between September 2010 and August 2013, 80 patients (32 women and 48 men; age range, 18–75 years) were treated for 107 lumbar disk herniations (L2–L3,  n  = 1; L3–L4,  n  = 15; L4–L5,  n  = 53; and L5–S1,  n  = 38) and 9 cervical disk herniations (C4–C5,  n  = 2; C5–C6,  n  = 2; C6–C7,  n  = 3; and C7–D1,  n  = 2) by percutaneous intradiskal i...

Literature has suggested that changes in brain flow circulation occur in patients with multiple sclerosis .  In this study , digital subtraction angiography (DSA) was used to measure the absolute CCT value in MS patients and to correlate its value to age at disease onset and duration, and to expand disability status scale (EDSS).  DSA assessment was performed on eighty MS patients and on a control group of forty-four age-matched patients. CCT in MS and control groups was calculated by analyzing the angiographic images. Lesion and brain volumes were calculated in a representative group of MS patients. Statistical correlations among CCT and disease duration, age at disease onset, lesion load, brain volumes and EDSS were considered.  A significant difference between CCT in MS patients (mean = 4.9s; sd = 1.27s) and control group (mean = 2.8s; sd = 0.51s) was demonstrated. No significant statistical correlation was found between CCT and the other parameters in all MS pat...

In about 50 %  of sporadic cases of retinoblastoma, no constitutive RB1 mutations are detected by conventional methods.  However, recent research suggests that, at least in some of these cases, there is somatic mosaicism with respect to RB1 normal and mutant alleles. The increased availability of next generation sequencing improves our ability to detect the exact percentage of patients with mosaicism. Using this technology, we re-tested a series of 40 patients with sporadic retinoblastoma: 10 of them had been previously classified as constitutional heterozygotes, whereas in 30 no RB1 mutations had been found in lymphocytes. In 3 of these 30 patients, we have now identified low-level mosaic variants, varying in frequency between 8 and 24 % . In 7 out of the 10 cases previously classified as heterozygous from testing blood cells, we were able to test additional tissues (ocular tissues, urine and / or oral mucosa): in three of them, next generation sequencing has revealed mosai...

A research team at the Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Center   - Northwestern University, Illinois, USA, found that the protein amyloid - a hallmark of this disease - begins to accumulate in the neurons of the brain since the age of 20 [ see more here  ] . Scientists believe that this is the first time that such changes were observed in the human brain of individuals so young. Prof. Changiz Gheula said: Discovering that amyloid begins to accumulate so early in life is unprecedented.  This is very significant.  We know that amyloid, when present for long periods of time, is bad for you. For the study, brains of deceased people in the age range from 20 to 95 were considered. Specifically, the sample included  twenty-one people with Alzheimer's disease aged between 60 and 95,  sixteen people aged between 70 and 79 without dementia, and thirteen  "normal" people aged between 20 and 66 years.     The findings are publishe...

Multicollinearity is caused by the presence of linear relationship between the regressors. When the regressors are not orthogonal and become almost perfectly related, estimates of the individual regression coefficients may become unstable. Moreover, the inferences based on the model may tend to be misleading [ 1 ].  The effects, diagnostics and handling  of  multicollinearity   in linear models  have been discussed  here . 1. Nonlinear model Nonlinear regression is characterized  by the fact that the prediction equation  depends non linearly on one or more unknown parameters [ 2 ]. The basic nonlinear model has the form :             1)             y = f( X , b )+ e where f(.) is a nonlinear (in the parameters b) differentiable function, f: R n ® R m ,  y is the dependent variable ( y Î R m ), X is a set of exogenous variables ( X   Î   R n ) , b  repre...