Viral and bacterial aetiologies of epithelial ovarian cancer.

We sought to analyse the presence of human papillomavirus (HPV), Chlamydia trachomatis and cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection in women with epithelial ovarian carcinomas. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based detection of microbial infections was carried out. A total of 39 tissue samples were analysed with consensus and type-specific primers for HPV, primers specific for the cryptic plasmid of Chlamydia and primers for glycoprotein B of CMV. The samples analysed showed 40%, 80% and 50% positivity for HPV, Chlamydia and CMV infection, respectively, in cancerous ovarian tissues. The HPV type detected was HPV 6, with its genome integrated to the host genome in case of both invasive and borderline tumours and existed episomally in healthy controls. The patients with Chlamydia (odds ratio [OR] 32; 95% confidence interval [CI] 3.33, 307.65) and CMV infection (OR 8; 95% CI 0.888, 72.10) are at significantly higher risk of development of ovarian tumours. The present study validates the theory of chronic infections and inflammation in the pathogenesis of epithelial ovarian cancer. Further seroepidemiological studies and large fresh tissue sampling may represent the real prevalence of infections among ovarian carcinoma patients. This study is the first of its kind in detecting the bacterial and viral aetiologies in the development of ovarian carcinoma among Indian women.

Prevalence of human papillomavirus (HPV) among college going girls using self collected urine samples from Tiruchirappalli, Tamilnadu.

PURPOSE: The study aimed to identify the status of HPV infection among young sexually unexposed girls from Tiruchriapalli district, Tamilnadu, India. METHODS: The distribution of HPV genotypes was evaluated by PCR DNA genotyping after self sampling from 246 study subjects. RESULTS: Positivity for HPV DNA was reported among 9.2% of the study subjects. The most frequently detected HPV type was HPV 16 (0.8%) followed by HPV 11 (0.4%). CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that the age did not seem to be a cofactor for HPV infection and nevertheless, sexual intercourse is an important factor for HPV infection. Moreover, these results demonstrate that HPV detection performed in self collected samples may be important to appraise better preventive strategies and monitor the influence of vaccination programmes within the population.

Bilateral ovarian teratoma complicated with carcinosarcoma in a 68 year old woman: a case report.

BACKGROUND: Composing of less than 1% of all ovarian cancers, immature teratoma is a malignancy that mainly affects the young, and they present with advanced disease. The treatment of immature teratoma is conservative primary surgery usually involving unilateral salpingo-oophorectomy followed by combination chemotherapy. CASE PRESENTATION: Here we present a case of a 68 year old woman with bilateral ovarian teratoma complicated with carcinosarcoma. The patient was diagnosed as FIGO stage IIIC. She underwent neoadjuvant chemotherapy and interval cytoreduction followed by optimal cytoreduction. The post operative management strategies and gynaecological follow up studies revealed no evidence of regional or distant metastasis. CONCLUSION: Thus the choice of initial treatment should be decided in a selective fashion depending on various prognostic factors in order to increase the survival of the patients.

Frequency of rare BCR-ABL1 fusion transcripts in chronic myeloid leukemia patients.

INTRODUCTION: The hallmark of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is the presence of Philadelphia chromosome, its resultant fusion transcript (BCR-ABL1), and fusion protein (p210). Alternate breakpoints in BCR (m-bcr, µ-bcr, and others) or ABL1 result in the expression of few rare fusion transcripts (e19a2, e1a2, e13a3, e14a3) and fusion proteins (p190, p200, p225) whose exact clinical significance remains to be determined. METHODS: Our study was designed to determine the type and frequency of BCR-ABL1 fusion transcripts in 1260 CML patients and to analyze the prognosis and treatment response in patients harboring rare BCR-ABL1 fusion transcripts. RESULTS: The frequency of various BCR-ABL1 fusion transcripts was as follows: e14a2 (60%), e13a2 (34.3%), e1a2 (1.2%), e1a2 + e13a2 (2.0%), e1a2 + e14a2 (1.8%), e19a2 (0.3%), and e14a3 (0.3%). CML patients with e1a2 transcripts had higher rates of disease progression, resistance, or suboptimal response to imatinib and failed to achieve major molecular response. CONCLUSION: Characterization of the specific fusion transcript in CML patients is important owing to the difference in prognosis and response to therapy in addition to the conventional need for monitoring treatment response. CML patients with e1a2 transcripts have to be closely monitored due to the high incidence of disease progression and treatment resistance/failure.

Extracorporeal shock wave therapy in periodontics: A new paradigm.

The quest for exploring new frontiers in the field of medical science for efficient and improved treatment modalities has always been on a rise. Extracorporeal shock wave therapy (ESWT) has been enormously used in medical practice, principally, for the management of urolithiasis, cholelithiasis and also in various orthopedic and musculoskeletal disorders. The efficacy of ESWT in the stimulation of osteoblasts, fibroblasts, induction of neovascularization and increased expression of bone morphogenic proteins has been well documented in the literature. However, dentistry is no exception to this trend. The present article enlightens the various applications of ESWT in the field of dentistry and explores its prospective applications in the field of periodontics, and the possibility of incorporating the beneficial properties of shock waves in improving the treatment outcome.