Malignant transformation of kissing nevus- a rare entity.

BACKGROUND: Kissing nevus is a congenital nevus in adjacent parts of the eyelids. Malignant transformation of kissing or divided nevi of the eyelids is rarely described. OBJECTIVE: To report a very rare case of malignant transformation of kissing nevus with ocular and extraocular spread. CASE: A 57- year- old man with 6/6 visual acuity in both eyes presented with a kissing nevus present since birth in right upper and lower eyelids which had a slow growth phase. The upper lid in the area of the nevus was thickened with a 20x12x15 mm black pigmented crusted hemorrhagic nodular lesions. The lower lid had a 6 mm black pigmented ulcerated lesion over the pre-existing nevus in the lateral third of the lid with full thickness infiltration. Another 5x4 mm pigmented lesion over the lower medial lid margin with a thickness of about 3 mm extended to the conjunctival side of the lower lid. Right sided pre-auricular and sub-maxillary nodes were palpable. A biopsy of tissue samples from the eyelid and pre-auricular nodes were consistent with malignant melanoma. CONCLUSION: Malignant transformation of kissing nevus is rare. It can spread to the conjunctiva,pre-auricular and sub-mandibular lymphnodes.

A comparison of infero-nasal and infero-temporal sub-Tenon's block.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Sub-Tenon's block is usually delivered by the infero-nasal (IN) approach, but occasionally this may not be possible. The infero-temporal (IT) approach has been described, but data is not available on its efficacy. METHODS: One hundred patients undergoing cataract extraction were randomized to receive an IN or IT sub-Tenon's injection of lidocaine 2% with hyaluronidase 15 IU mL-1. Akinesia was assessed using the Brahma scale at 0, 2, 4, 6 and 8 min. Injection, intraoperative and postoperative pain scores (verbal analogue score, 0-10) were noted, along with the incidence of sub-conjunctival haemorrhage and chemosis. RESULTS: There were no differences in patient characteristics data, or mean volume of administered local anaesthetic solution (3.3 (SD = 0.4) mL). There were no significant differences between groups in terms of onset of akinesia. Mean akinesia scores at 2, 4, 6 and 8 min were 2.7, 1.1, 0.4 and 0.2 for Group IN, compared to 2.2, 0.9, 0.8 and 0.3 for Group IT. Chemosis occurred in 14 patients in Group IN, compared to 22 in Group IT (P = 0.21).A sub-conjunctival haemorrhage was noted in 14 patients in Group IN and 19 patients in Group IT (P = 0.52). No patients required supplementary injections. Mean pain scores for the injection, intraoperatively and postoperatively were 0.9, 0 and 0 for Group IN, compared to 1.1, 0 and 0 for group IT. The surgeons scored all the blocks as 'good' except for one patient in each group. CONCLUSIONS: The IT approach provides an equally rapid onset of block, without a significant increase in complications.

Oil content and fatty acid composition of promising Indian Brassica campestris L. (Toria) genotypes.

Seeds of sixty four genotypes of Brassica campestris L. (Toria) were analyzed for oil content and fatty acid composition. Oil content varied from 38.9% to 44.6%. Major fatty acids viz. oleic, linoleic, linolenic, eicosenoic and erucic acids exhibited ranges from 10.1% to 17.3%, 5.9% to 14.5%, 5.2% to 15.0%, 7.7% to 13.7% and 39.6% to 59.9%, respectively. Compared to the standard cultivar ITSA, four genotypes contained 5 to 8% lower content of erucic acid; and six genotypes contained significantly higher content of linoleic acid. Oil was positively correlated with erucic acid. The observed inverse relationship between linoleic and erucic acid contents might be utilized in breeding nutritionally better Toria cultivars with both high linoleic and low erucic acid contents.

Effect of histamine, phencyclidine, phenoxybenzamine and gamma-aminobutyric acid on ovulation and quality of ova in rats.

The gonadotropin-stimulated prepuberal female rat is a good model for the study of drugs affecting ovulation and the quality of ova released. Various pharmacological agents, such as histamine, phencyclidine, phenoxybenzamine (PBZ) and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), were tested in this paradigm for evaluation on incidence of ovulation, number of ova released and degeneration in the ova shed. A dose of 25 iu of pregnant mare serum gonadotropin (PMS) was found to be most effective in inducing superovulation in these rats. The percentage of degenerative eggs obtained was least in this dose group. Histamine and GABA appeared to cause an increased number of oocytes to be released, while phencyclidine reduced the number of animals responding to PMS treatment. PBZ was effective in completely blocking ovulation only when given before the LH surge occurred in the treated animals. The quality of ova released was affected by GABA, phencyclidine and PBZ. GABA and phencyclidine reduced the incidence of degenerative oocytes while treatment of animals with PBZ at the time of PMS administration increased the degenerative oocytes. It is suggested that more studies be carried out to observe the effect of various drugs, administered shortly before ovulation, on ovum quality.

Investigation of narcotics and antitussives using drug discrimination techniques.

Rats learned drug discriminations in a shock-escape T-maze task. They were trained to turn right in the maze following injection of a drug (D) and left when no injection (N) was given. Number of training sessions before criterion performance (STC) was used to indicate degree of discriminability of the training drug. STC decreased monotonically as dosage increased, and reached a minimum of 3 to 26 with various agonists. Most agonists were not highly discriminable. Daily maintenance injections of morphine, 200 to 600 mg/kg, increased the STC of morphine, 15 mg/kg, significantly, but complete tolerance to discriminable drug actions was not observed. After rats discriminated D vs. N, they were tested with novel drugs to determine which would elicit D choices. Most morphine-like agonists substituted for one another during substitution tests; the tested agonists included alphaprodine, codeine, fentanyl, heroin, meperidine, methadone, morphine, piminodine and propoxyphene. In a few instances, one of these agonists failed to substitute for another. Naloxone and naltrexone antagonized the discriminable effects of morphine. Cyclazocine, levallorphan, naltrexone, dextromethorphan, ethoheptazine and the narcotic agonists did not substitute for one another, suggesting that six dissimilar discriminable effects were produced by these drugs.

follicular fluid electrolytes and osmolality in cyclic pigs.

Sodium and osmolar concentrations of porcine folliclar fluid in the cyclic pig did not vary significantly during the oestrous cycle, and were similar to those in plasma. The K+ concentration was greater in small (Days 12-13) and medium-sized (Day 16) follicles than in plasma or large (Day 18-oestrus) follicles of cyclic sows. In contrast, follicular fluid obtained from slaughterhouse material had higher potassium and osmolality, and lower sodium values, which are assumed to be due to post-mortem changes.

Effect of removal of carbohydrate residues upon the half life and in vivo biological activity of human chorionic gonadotropin.

The effect of progressive enzymatic removal of various carbohydrates on the half life (T 1/2) and biologic activity in vivo of hCG was studied in rats. The cleavage of carbohydrates such as galactose, glucosamine and mannose, in addition to sialic acid, reduced the T 1/2 from 60--90 for native hCG to less than 3 minutes. The hCG derivatives had no inherent ability to cause ovulation, but in PMSG, Nembutal-treated immature rats, the hCG derivatives with carbohydrate residues internal to sialic acid removed blocked the stimulatory effect of native hCG upon ovulation.