[Primary benign schwannoma of the pleura: Report of 2 cases]. / Schwannome bénin primitif de la plèvre : à propos de deux cas opérés.

The preferred thoracic location of a schwannoma is the posterior mediastinum. A pleural location is very rare. To date there have been fewer than 20 cases in the literature. We report two operated cases of primary benign pleural schwannoma. The first occurred in a 52-year-old woman who presented with right-sided chest pain and chronic cough. The radiological appearance suggested a hydatid cyst of the lower right lobe. The second case concerned a 37-year-old, asymptomatic man with no past history, who presented with a left posterior mediastinal mass, discovered incidentally on imaging. Both patients underwent complete surgical resection via a posterolateral thoracotomy. The final anatomo-pathological investigation revealed two primary benign schwannomas of the pleura.

[Prevalence and risk factors for fatty liver in Tunisian adults with obstructive sleep apnea]. / Prévalence et facteurs de risque de stéatose hépatique chez les adultes tunisiens atteints de syndrome d'apnées hypopnées obstructives du sommeil.

INTRODUCTION: Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is commonly associated with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Early identification of NAFLD in OSA patients is important in order to try to prevent its evolution to advanced stages. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence and risk factors for the occurrence of NAFLD in OSA patients. METHOD: A cross-sectional analysis including 124 OSA patients examined in the pulmonology department of Abderahmane Mami Hospital between January 2017 and March 2018 was undertaken. NAFLD was diagnosed using an abdominal ultrasonography. Data were analysed in a univariate and multivariate fashion in order to determine the characteristics of OSA patients with and without NAFLD. RESULTS: NAFLD was found in 62.9 % patients, with a frequency according to OSA severity of 51.3 %, 56.5 % and 72.6 % in mild, moderate and severe OSA, respectively. Severe OSA multiplies by 2.32 the risk of having NAFLD. The comparison between groups with and without NAFLD reveals that patients with the disease were younger, more obese, had more severe OSA, lower nocturnal oxygen saturation during sleep, and higher ALAT levels. Multivariate analysis showed a statistically significant link between NAFLD and serum ALAT elevation and the oxygen desaturation index. CONCLUSIONS: NAFLD is a frequent comorbidity in OSA, correlated to the severity of the disease. Thus, early screening of the disease in OSA patients especially in younger obese patients with high ALAT serum levels and a high oxygen desaturation index is proposed.

Tracheobronchopathia osteochondroplastica : a rare cause of hemoptysis.

Tracheobronchopathia osteochondroplastica (TO) is a rare and benign pathological condition of the upper pulmonary tract of unknown cause. Often diagnosed after 50 years of age, it is more common in men. Clinical manifestations are variable and unspecific. Endoscopic findings are the main argument for the diagnosis. We report the case of a 41 year-old woman with TO, presenting a chronic cough and recurrent hemoptysis.

[Epidemiology and susceptibility profile of blood culture isolates in an intensive care unit (2002-2005)]. / Epidémiologie et profil de sensibilité des isolats d'hémoculture dans un service de réanimation (2002-2005).

INTRODUCTION: The aim of our study was to determine the epidemiological profile and the antibiotics susceptibility of bacteria identified in blood culture in the intensive care unit, to improve empirical antibiotherapy. MATERIAL AND METHOD: A retrospective study was made over a four-year period (2002-2005) in the intensive care unit of the Mohammed-V Military Hospital. It included all the bacteria identified in blood culture. RESULTS: During this period, we collected 286 isolates, Gram-negative bacilli 49.3% and Gram-positive cocci 46.85%. The most frequently identified species were Acinetobacter baumannii (13.63%), Staphylococcus epidermidis (12.6%), Staphylococcus aureus (11.9%), and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (7%). Enterobacteriaceae accounted for 25.54%: Klebsiella pneumoniae 7%, and Enterobacter cloacae 7%. The rate of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus was 52.94 % and coagulase negative staphylococci 60.24%. No resistance to glycopeptides was observed. Enterobacteriaceae were resistant to third generation cephalosporins in 42.6 % and had a broad-spectrum betalactamase phenotype in 18%. The resistance rate of A. baumannii was 68.7% for ceftazidime and 31.4% for imipenem. The resistance rate of P. aeruginosa to the third generation cephalosporines and the imipenem were respectively 16.6% and 10.5%. CONCLUSION: A regular epidemiologic study of blood culture isolates and determination of susceptibility to antibiotics are necessary to improve empiric therapy.

[Systemic capillary leak syndrome: two case reports]. / Le syndrome d'hyperperméabilité capillaire idiopathique : deux nouvelles observations.

INTRODUCTION: Systemic capillary leak syndrome (SHCI) is a rare disease with poor prognosis, characterized by recurrent episodes of generalized edema and hypotension. EXEGESIS: Two patients a 41 and 34-year-old woman were admitted with a generalized edema and several episode of shock. One patient had muscular edema with compartment syndrome imposing the aponevrotomia of discharge in emergency. The association of elevated hematocrit, decreased albumin serum concentration confirmed the diagnosis of SHCI. Administration of intravenous fluids improved the clinical and biological symptomatology. CONCLUSION: These two new observations are comparable to the published cases. We didn't find dysglobulinemia whose existence is frequented. The treatment of shock requires macromolecules solutions. The preventive treatment remains empiric.

PPMdb: a plant plasma membrane database.

PPMdb is a proteome database dedicated to proteins from plant plasma membranes. It provides comprehensive two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (2-D PAGE) maps, partial amino acid sequences and expression data. All this information is gathered and structured in a relational database, after being analyzed and annotated. PPMdb includes active links to related biological databases (EMBL, GenBank, GenPep, and SWISS-PROT and TrEMBL) as well as to MEDLINE abstracts. Information on specific protein spots can be displayed by clicking on the 2-D maps. In addition, users can query the database by accession number, protein name, pI and MW, and cellular location. Access to PPMdb is available at the following URL: http://sphinx.rug. ac.be:8080.

Use of a proteome strategy for tagging proteins present at the plasma membrane.

A plasma membrane (PM) fraction was purified from Arabidopsis thaliana using a standard procedure and analyzed by two-dimensional (2D) gel electrophoresis. The proteins were classified according to their relative abundance in PM or cell membrane supernatant fractions. Eighty-two of the 700 spots detected on the PM 2D gels were microsequenced. More than half showed sequence similarity to proteins of known function. Of these, all the spots in the PM-specific and PM-enriched fractions, together with half of the spots with similar abundance in PM fraction and supernatant, have previously been found at the PM, supporting the validity of this approach. Extrapolation from this analysis indicates that (i) approximately 550 polypeptides found at the PM could be resolved on 2D gels; (ii) that numerous proteins with multiple locations are found at the PM; and (iii) that approximately 80% of PM-specific spots correspond to proteins with unknown function. Among the later, half are represented by ESTs or cDNAs in databases. In this way, several unknown gene products were potentially localized to the PM. These data are discussed with respect to the efficiency of organelle proteome approaches to link systematically genomic data to genome expression. It is concluded that generalized proteomes can constitute a powerful resource, with future completion of Arabidopsis genome sequencing, for genome-wide exploration of plant function.