Acinic Cell Carcinoma of the Nasal Lateral Wall.

Primary acinic cell carcinoma arising in the nose is exceptionally rare. In this report, we present a unique case of an acinic cell carcinoma of the nasal lateral wall, and it is only the second such case to be reported. We also engage in a systematic review of all 18 cases of acinic cell carcinoma of the nose reported in the literature in English so far.

Mandibular meningioma-a rare case report of a second extracranial meningioma and a systematic literature review.

Meningiomas are benign tumours common in the central nervous system. Primary extracranial meningiomas in the jaws are extremely rare. We performed a systematic review of all the primary extracranial meningioma arising in the jawbones reported in the English-language literature including indexed and non-indexed journals and we report a unique case in our hospital of a man with two primary extracranial meningiomas, the first frontal intradiploic and 16 years later, a second located in the mandible. We found 14 cases with primary jaws meningioma and we report another one. A mandibular predominance was observed with only four cases in the maxilla. Most of them occurred in women, with a mean age of 35.9 years. It is the first published case of a patient with two primary extracranial meningiomas one of them in the mandible, which the gender, age and laterality of the lesion are less frequent.

Sleep disturbances in Italian children and adolescents with epilepsy: A questionnaire study.

Sleep and epilepsy interact with each other in a complex bidirectional way. The main objective of this study was to characterize and determine the prevalence of sleep and behavioral disorders among Italian children and adolescents with epilepsy. We asked 84 consecutive parents/caregivers of patients with epilepsy aged between 6 and 17 years old to fill out the Sleep Disturbances Scale for Children (SDSC) and Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). An abnormal total sleep score was found in 20 subjects with epilepsy (23.8%), compared with 4 (4.4%) of control group (P < .001). Forty-eight patients (57.1%) had an abnormal score in at least one SDSC factor: disorders in initiating and maintaining sleep (DIMS; 13.1%), sleep breathing disorders (SBD; 13.1%), disorders of arousal (DA; 5.9%), sleep-wake transition disorders (SWTD; 15.5%), disorders of excessive somnolence (DOES; 20.2%), and sleep hyperhidrosis (SHY; 5.9%). Patients with epilepsy showed higher prevalence of behavioral/emotional disturbances in all CBCL domains but one compared with patients without epilepsy. The SDSC and CBCL total scores showed a significant correlation (R-square = 0.256; P < .001). Sleep and behavioral/emotional disorders are common in epilepsy during childhood and adolescence. The SDSC could be a valid tool to screen sleep disturbances in this group of patients.

Parapharyngeal schwannoma-a challenging case report.

Parapharyngeal space primary neoplasias are infrequent findings in clinics, and schwannoma derived from a peripheral nerve is even rarer in this anatomic area [1]. The presented case is a patient who was referred to our department with a 3 months progressive soft palate enlargement without related symptoms. The challenge, in these cases, due to the anatomic complex area, is to catch a suitable approach to remove the tumor, according to dimension and surrounding structures. Prognosis and follow-up will depend on histopathologic evaluation.

Maxillary mesenchymal chondrosarcoma leading to a diagnosis of Li-Fraumeni syndrome.

Mesenchymal chondrosarcoma (MCS) is a rare histological variant of chondrosarcoma, with aggressive behaviour. Due to the unique nature of this disease, management strategies are not well established. Li-Fraumeni syndrome (LFS) is a rare cancer predisposition syndrome with a wide tumour spectrum, associated with TP53 germline mutations. We report a case of MCS of the maxilla, treated with surgical excision and adjuvant chemotherapy, in a patient with a past medical history of choroid plexus papilloma and a family history of early age first-degree cervical uterine cancer, that led to the clinical suspicion of a cancer predisposition syndrome and the subsequent diagnosis of LFS. This is the first MCS described in a LFS case. It demonstrates that adjuvant chemotherapy should be considered, in conjunction with surgical excision, in MCS and that cancer predisposition syndromes should be suspected in patients with multiple neoplasms and a strong family history of cancer.

Resistance of different guidewires to laser injury: an in-vitro experiment.

BACKGROUND: In urology, lasers are used in a variety of endoscopic procedures such as ureteroscopy and retrograde renal surgery for stone fragmentation of urinary calculi and ablation of urothelial tumors. To perform these procedures, guidewires are used as a preliminary safe-mainstay for referencing the urinary tract. This study aims to determine the effect of two different lasers: holmium:YAG (Ho:YAG) and thulium:YAG (Tm:YAG) lasers on metal guidewires with PTFE coating (PTFE), nitinol guidewires with hydrophilic coating (Hydrophilic) and nitinol guidewires with hydrophilic listed coating (Zebra). METHODS: Different combinations of frequency (5, 10 and 12 Hz) and energy per pulse (0.5, 1.5, and 2.6 J) of Ho:YAG laser were applied on the three kinds of guidewires in two experiments (50 J vs. 100 J of total energy). For the Tm:YAG laser three power levels (5, 35, and 70 W) with a total energy of 100 J were applied to the guidewires. The degree of damage (0 to 5) of the guidewire was assessed after each laser application. RESULTS: A higher degree of injury of guidewires was related to higher values of total energy used for the Ho:YAG laser (P=0.036), and to higher values of power applied with the Tm:YAG (P=0.051). The most resistant guidewire to Ho:YAG laser energy was Zebra, followed by PTFE and Hydrophilic (P<0.001). With the Tm:YAG laser, PTFE guidewire appears to be the most resistant and the Hydrophilic the most fragile, although without reaching the statistical significance (P=0.223). CONCLUSIONS: Both lasers revealed a harmful effect on the three tested guidewires. There was an association between the degree of injury and the amount of Ho:YAG laser energy and Tm:YAG laser power. The guidewire Zebra proved to be the safest when using Ho:YAG laser and the PTFE guidewire the most resistant to laser Tm:YAG. Further studies are necessary to confirm these results.