Role of neuroendoscopy in the treatment of large viable cysticerci in the brain parenchyma

Neuroendoscopy has never been used for diagnosis-making and removal of large parenchymal viable parasites associated with severe mass effect. Satisfactory and complication-free removal of the parenchymal cysticerci was achieved after neuroendoscopical diagnosis in a patient with parenchymal parasites, with immediate remission of clinical alterations related to raised intracranial pressure.

Minimally invasive electrodiagnostic monitoring in epilepsy surgery

A new method of obtaining electrographic recordings from endoscopically-based intraventricular monitoring was performed in three patients with intractable epilepsy, who subsequently underwent open resective neurosurgery. As a minimally invasive procedure, it was associated with no peri-operative complications, and electrical intraoperative monitoring of the epileptogenic focus yielded excellent results.

Liver cell rosettes: structural differences in cholestasis and hepatitis

Cholestatic and hepatitic liver cell rosettes, gland-like formations found respectively in chronic cholestasis and in chronic active hepatitis, represent structural modifications of liver cell plates in response to injury. Differences in cytokeratin expression, ultrastructure and three-dimensional (3-D) configuration have been investigated. Cholestatic rosettes are considered to be a form of biliary metaplasia of hepatocytes, linking with newly-formed bile ductules in adjacent septa and probably providing some protection from injury caused by abnormal bile constituents. Hepatitis rosettes, by contrast, are a form of liver cell regeneration developing in isolated surviving hepatocytes or small groups of hepatocytes within areas of collapse.

The pathology of diabetic hepatitis

Liver biopsies from nine patients with maturity-onset diabetes and fatty liver hepatitis were semiquantitatively assessed, and the findings compared with those in alcoholic hepatitis. Overall appearances were similar, but the lesion in some diabetics was periportal rather than perivenular in location, and nuclear vacuolation of hepatocyte nuclei was always present. The inflammatory infiltrate often included neutrophil leucocytes, as in the alcoholic. In three patients with multiple biopsies, progression appeared to be slow, but one patient developed cirrhosis.

Does a linear pattern of sinusoidal IgA deposition distinguish between alcoholic and diabetic liver disease?

IgA deposition in hepatic sinusoids was demonstrated in liver biopsies from 26 patients with alcohol- or diabetes-related fatty liver and fatty liver hepatitis, and from 13 patients with normal liver or chronic active hepatitis. The pattern and extent of IgA deposition were similar in alcoholic and diabetic patients, a linear, continuous pattern being the most common. Staining for IgA cannot therefore be used to evaluate aetiology of fatty liver hepatitis in these two groups of patients.

[Takayasu arteritis with calcified giant ventricular aneurysm. Presentation of a case]

Takayasu Arteritis (TA) was thought to only involve the aortic arch and its main branches, but subsequent studies demonstrated that the arteritis in not confined to these areas. The process can involve, among others, the coronary arterial tree and is capable to produce myocardial infarction. Many authors thought that when patients with TA presented with heart failure, it was generally a consequence of extramyocardial factors such as systemic or pulmonary hypertension and/or aortic regurgitation. We present the case of a young female with TA and calcified giant ventricular aneurysm. We discuss the probabilities of its origin and emphasize the relationship between the pathologic findings and the possibility of direct myocardial damage by TA, but our impression is that it is due to coronary involvement because we found a lesion in the anterior descending artery.