[New therapeutic strategies for retinoblastoma: non-systemic chemotherapy]. / Neue Therapiestrategien beim Retinoblastom: Nichtsystemische Chemotherapie.

Retinoblastoma is the most common primary intraocular malignancy worldwide. The known established standard therapies for bilateral disease, such as external beam radiation therapy or systemic chemotherapy often lead to a higher morbidity and increased risk of secondary malignancies, especially with radiation therapy. Therefore, new non-systemic chemotherapy strategies, such as the intra-arterial or intravitreal administration of melphalan are being revised with the aim of reducing systemic side effects.

[New developments in molecular genetics and treatment of retinoblastoma]. / Neue Entwicklungen zur Genetik und Therapie des Retinoblastoms.

Retinoblastomas are the most frequent primary malignant intraocular tumours worldwide. Conventional and new treatment modalities have significantly improved the chance for survival and preservation of vision. The armamentarium of treatment modalities has been broadened recently by new techniques like intraarterial chemotherapy, which still has to be considered as experimental since long-term follow-up results are not yet available. The excellent prognosis for retinoblastomas in countries with a well developed health system is contrasted by the miserable prognosis for retinoblastomas in developing countries, which must be changed by a joint effort of all centres.

[Intraocular medulloepithelioma - series of 10 cases and review of the literature]. / Intraokulare Medulloepitheliome - klinische Serie mit 10 Fällen.

Intraocular medulloepithelioma is an extremely rare unilateral intraocular tumor arising from the nonpigmented ciliary epithelium. Medulloepitheliomas may be classified as benign and malignant and as teratoid and nonteratoid tumors. As a rule a long latency period occurs after first symptoms until the final diagnosis of a medulloepithelioma is made. Differential diagnosis includes in particular unilateral retinoblastoma. Intraocular medulloepithelioma may occur as masquerade-syndrome simulating uveitis. We present 10 patients with intraocular medulloepithelioma. In 7 of these patients the eye had to be enucleated. Metastasis did not occur, but epiretinal tumor seeding did occur in one patient. In one of the 3 not enucleated eyes, ruthenium-106 brachytherapy could salvage the tumor containing eye.

The reproducibility of the 4 mmol/l lactate threshold in trained and untrained women.

Lactate threshold measurements are part of the routine testing done for training and diagnostic purposes. The reproducibility of the 4 mmol.l-1 threshold has, however, rarely been investigated. Twenty-seven untrained and 10 endurance-trained females each performed two incremental spiroergometric treadmill tests at 5% grade, with three-minute speed increase intervals. Running speed at the threshold increased from 1.9 to 2.1 m.sec-1 in the untrained and remained constant at 3.4 m.sec-1 in the trained group. Heart frequency and oxygen uptake did not change significantly in either group. The variability of changes between untrained individuals expressed by correlation coefficients was r = 0.63 for oxygen uptake, 0.55 for running speed and 0.42 for heart frequency. These figures for the trained persons were r = 0.61; 0.92 and 0.88 respectively. The higher reproducibility of the anaerobic threshold in trained women supports the high value attached to the anaerobic threshold in training guidance. For untrained women, training recommendations of the basis of treadmill tests must consider treadmill running speed to be 0.14m.sec-1 higher than initially achieved during the first test because of coordination problems. Training-guidance-based heart frequency must take into account a higher variability for untrained than for trained females.