The patient was treated with six courses of paclitaxel and carboplatin, but the recurrent tumor grew. The patient was then treated with carbon ion radiotherapy (CIRT). The recurrent tumor shrank and the SN-38 cost patient has been free of clinical disease for 53 months. CIRT

can be considered as a treatment for recurrent MT-MCT.”
“SETTING: Three centres for the treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in Istanbul, Turkey: Heybeliada Centre for Chest Diseases and Thoracic Surgery, Sureyyapasa Centre for Chest Diseases and Thoracic Surgery and Yedikule Centre for Chest Diseases and Thoracic Surgery.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the presence of ethionamide (ETH) resistance and its effect on time to sputum smear

negativity in MDR-TB patients who had not previously received second-line anti-tuberculosis drugs.

DESIGN: Drug susceptibility testing for isoniazid (INH), rifampicin (RMP), ethambutol, streptomycin AZD1390 PI3K/Akt/mTOR inhibitor and ETH was performed on 50 patients treated between August 2004 and May 2005. Indirect agar proportion and BACTEC methods were used to determine ETH susceptibility.

RESULTS: Of the patients who were resistant to at least INH and RMP, 11 (22%) (three [27.3%] new and eight [72.7%] retreatment) were resistant to ETH with the BACTEC method. Of 18 new patients, three (16.6%) were ETH-resistant using the BACTEC method compared to 8/32 (25%) retreatment patients. The mean time to smear negativity was 75.2 days in ETH-resistant patients and 50 days in susceptible patients (P < 0.05). Both ETH-resistant and -susceptible groups were homogeneous for factors that may have a possible effect on time to conversion.

CONCLUSION: Not only GS-7977 cell line ETH resistance

but also age and radiologically advanced disease adversely affected time to sputum conversion.”
“We evaluated the influence of the type of needle and the operator’s experience on the quality of the specimen obtained at liver biopsy (LB).

We performed a multicentre, prospective study in four university hospitals, including LBs performed using either “”cutting”" (TruCut) or “”suction”" (Menghini) needles. According to their experience, we considered the operators as “”junior”" (< 100 LBs) or “”senior”" (> 100 LBs).

A total number of 745 LBs were evaluated, 413 performed with suction needles and 332 with cutting needles. Of all LBs, 473 where performed by “”senior”" and 272 by “”junior”" operators. The mean length of the fragment obtained was larger in LBs performed by senior (23.5 +/- 11.6 mm) vs. junior operators (15.9 +/- 9.8 mm, p < 0.001) and also if modified Menghini needles were used (23.7 +/- 12.1 mm) vs. TruCut (13.0 +/- 5.2 mm, p < 0.001). The number of portal tracts (PT) was higher in LBs performed by “”senior”" (14.3 +/- 8.8 PT) vs. “”junior”" operators (8.8 +/- 6.8 PT, p < 0.001); and with Menghini needles (17.2 +/- 9.7 PT) vs. TruCut (8.6 +/- 5.0 PT, p < 0.001).