The natural course of bicuspid aortic valve in athletes.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of a long-term athletic training on the clinical course of bicuspid aortic valve. A group of 81 athletes (73 M, 8 F, 22.7 +/- 5.6 years) with bicuspid aortic valve was collected. Based on clinical and echocardiographic criteria, athletes were initially divided into 2 groups: the low-risk (51 athletes) and the high-risk group (30 athletes). The high-risk athletes were disqualified from training and competitions after the first evaluation. Over the follow-up period, all of them showed significant worsening of morphologic and hemodynamic features of bicuspid aortic valve; two underwent surgical valvular repair and one of them died suddenly. Over the same period, six of the initially low-risk athletes (7%) showed significant worsening of morphologic features of bicuspid aortic valve and/or incidence of symptoms which led to their disqualification from competition. At the end of follow-up, we observed that in high-risk subjects the progression of valvular disease occurred independently from the former athletic activity and that the majority of athletes with mild bicuspid aortic valve had a benign clinical course. However, athletes with bicuspid aortic valve should be viewed with caution, and continued clinical surveillance would be mandatory.

Malignant behavior and resistance to cisplatin of human ovarian carcinoma xenografts established from the same patient at different stages of the disease.

Three human ovarian carcinoma lines (HOC8) derived from the same patient before (P-HOC8) and after (R-HOC8 and Y-HOC8) cycles of chemotherapy were established i.p. in nude mice. The biological characterization showed that these tumor lines had various features in common. Cytological and histopathological characteristics and the expression of tumor-associated antigens OC125 and MOV18 were maintained in the three variants and were comparable to the patient's primary tumor. The HOC8 variants were aneuploid with a chromosome mode number of 80-81. All three tumor lines grew better i.p. than s.c. in nude mice. After i.p. injection the HOC8 lines produced ascites in all the mice, infiltration of pancreas, liver, diaphragm, and lung metastases. The sensitivity to cisplatin was evaluated for HOC8 lines growing in nude mice and mirrored the clinical development of resistance. Treatment with cisplatin of mice transplanted i.p. with P-HOC8 (obtained before the patient received chemotherapy) resulted in a significant increase in survival time; the R-HOC8 and Y-HOC8 lines (obtained after chemotherapy) were less sensitive. HOC8 xenografts, which represent the course of a single patient's disease, are a useful model for investigating the development of drug resistance in ovarian carcinoma.