Tongue Base Ectopic Thyroid Tissue-Is It a Rare Encounter?

Failure in the embryological development of the thyroid in adults is rarely seen. We present the case of a 79-year-old female patient who complained of dysphagia and progressive upper respiratory obstruction, which started 12 months prior to her admission. An ENT clinical exam revealed a tongue base, spherical, well-defined tumour covered by normal mucosa. Further assessments established the diagnosis of the tongue base ectopic thyroid tissue. Due to the patient's symptoms, a transhyoid tongue base tumour removal was performed. The selected patient gave consent for participation and inclusion in this paper, in compliance with the 1964 Helsinki declaration.

Circulating Plasma Micro RNAs in Patients with Major Depressive Disorder Treated with Antidepressants: A Pilot Study

OBJECTIVE: Significant progress was made in the understanding etiopathogenic factors related to MDD, including through research on the role of micro RNAs (miRs). We investigated plasma miRs as potential markers for MDD in patients treated with antidepressants. METHODS: At the initiation and at the end of twelve weeks of treatment, blood samples were collected and a structured diagnostic interview and a standardized depression rating scale for the presence and severity of major depression were done. The average decrease in HAMD score was 76.89%. Plasma miR expression profiling was performed by real time PCR. The lists of up-regulated (cut-off=2) and down-regulated miRs were imported into the miRWalk2.0 algorithm and used for target predictions. KEGG database pathways analysis was used to retrieve the pathways significantly targeted by at least two of the miRs. RESULTS: Of the 222 miRs detected in plasma samples of MDD patients, 40 were differentially expressed after treatment. Twenty-three miRs were significantly overexpressed with fold changes between 1.85 and 25.42, and 17 miRs were significantly downregulated with fold changes from 0.28 to 0.68. Pathway analysis revealed a list of 29 pathways for up-regulated miRs, and 20 pathways for down-regulated miRs. Six dysregulated miRs are common to all the top five pathways (Wnt signaling, Cancer, Endocytosis, Axon guidance, MAPK signaling): miR-146a-5p, miR-146b-5p, miR-221-3p, miR-24-3p, miR-26a-5p. CONCLUSION: Overall, our miRWalk analysis of changes in plasma microRNAs after treatment of patients with major depression might open a new avenue for the understanding of Escitalopram mode of action and for its side effects.