A Rare Case of Tuberculosis Revealed by Acute Appendicitis: A Case Report.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), tuberculosis (TB) is the 13th cause of death worldwide and the second infectious killer after HIV. It is an endemic disease in Morocco. Isolated appendicular TB is an uncommon form of extrapulmonary TB. We report a case of a 26-year-old woman admitted for acute abdominal pain in the right iliac fossa with fever, vomiting, and diarrhea. Physical examination and abdominal ultrasound confirmed appendicitis. Surgery was performed and revealed on histopathological examination of the resected appendix the diagnosis of tubercular appendicitis. The patient was initiated on the conventional antitubercular regimen for six months and would be followed up appropriately. This case report highlights the importance of histopathological examination of appendicectomy specimens in order to diagnose rare diseases such as primary TB of the appendix.

Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of children with peripheral neuroblastic tumors: a study on a Moroccan population.

PURPOSE: Peripheral neuroblastic tumors are the most common extracranial cancers found in children, and they are characterized by a diverse spectrum of clinical manifestations and heterogeneous behaviors. This study aimed to investigate the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of children with peripheral neuroblastic tumors admitted to the Department of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology of the Hospital August 20 in Casablanca. METHODS: The medical files of 48 children with peripheral neuroblastic tumors addressed to our department between February 2018 and February 2023 were reviewed. The clinical and demographic characteristics of patients were analyzed by the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), survival curves were obtained by Kaplan-Meier technique, and we assigned the tumor stage to patients based on the International Neuroblastoma Risk Group Staging System (INRGSS). RESULTS: The median age of diagnosis was 30 months (1-174), with a ratio F/M of 1.28. 93.75% of patients had neuroblastoma, and the rest had ganglioneuroma. About 64.6% of patients had at their initial presentations stage M of peripheral neuroblastic tumors. The adrenal region made up 71% of the primary tumor site. The bone was one of the most prevalent metastatic sites (54.2%). The five-year overall survival rate was 35.4%. CONCLUSION: Overall, this study revealed a high stage of peripheral neuroblastic tumors in the majority of the diagnosed patients in our Department of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology. Moreover, the heterogeneity of peripheral neuroblastic tumors makes clinical recognition difficult and, in general, too late.

Anatomo-Clinical Aspects of Retinoblastoma: A Series of 144 Cases.

Retinoblastoma (RB) is the most common intraocular primary malignancy for infants and young children. The tumor is bilateral in 40% of cases and unilateral in 60% of cases. The hereditary form is due to a germinal mutation in the RB1 tumor suppressor gene. In developed countries, patients treated for RB have excellent survival, but unfortunately in developing countries delays in diagnosis and lack of human and financial resources are responsible for deaths. We conducted a retrospective study of 144 cases of RB in order to evaluate the clinico-pathological aspect of RB for the national reference center of RB in Morocco. Our study highlighted the indispensable collaboration between the clinician and the pathologist. Besides the diagnostic confirmation, the anatomopathological study gives us information on histopronostic risk factors to guide the treatment.