Enfermedad de Lhermitte-Duclos o gangliocitoma displásico cerebeloso: reporte de un caso y revisión de la literatura / Lhermitte-Duclos disease or cerebellar dysplastic gangliocytoma: Case report and literature review

La enfermedad de Lhermitte-Duclos o gangliocitoma displásico cerebeloso es una entidad infrecuente que se presenta como un proceso expansivo de la fosa posterior, de lento crecimiento y patogenia desconocida. Puede estar asociada a otras anomalías congénitas. Presentamos el caso de un gangliocitoma displásico de cerebelo en un paciente de sexo masculino, de 77 años de edad, con antecedentes de adenocarcinoma prostático, que fue estudiado por tomografía computada (TC) y resonancia magnética (RM). Los hallazgos característicos, junto con una evaluación neuroquirúrgica y un manejo apropiados, permitieron efectuar el diagnóstico preoperatorio sin necesidad de recurrir a exámenes histopatológicos...

The Lhermitte-Duclos disease or dysplastic cerebellar gangliocytoma is an uncommon disorder that presents as an expansive, slow growing process of the posterior fossa, of unknown pathogenesis, that may be associated with other congenital anomalies.A case is presented of a dysplastic cerebellar gangliocytoma in a 77 year-old male patient, with a history of prostatic adenocarcinoma. A study was made using Computed Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance (MRI), where the characteristic findings enabled a preoperative diagnosis to be made without need for histopathological examination, in addition to a neurosurgical evaluation and appropriate management...

Excitation of ion-acoustic-like waves by subcritical currents in a plasma having equal electron and ion temperatures.

The effect of a magnetic-field-aligned plasma flow with a transverse velocity gradient on the excitation of current-driven ion-acoustic-like waves in a plasma having equal electron and ion temperatures (T(e) = T(i)) was investigated experimentally. In agreement with theoretical predictions, the presence of sheared plasma flow substantially reduces the critical electron drift velocity needed to produce the ion-acoustic instability.

Testosterona sérica: posible marcador en el cáncer colorrectal / Serum testosterone: a possible marker for colorrectal cancer

En la última década se ha descripto el descenso de la testosterona circulante en tumores de páncreas, estómago y pulmón. Por ello nos propusimos estudiar el comportamiento de algunos esteroides séricos en pacientes con cáncer colorrectal, así como su utilidad para el diagnóstico y monitoreo post-quirúrgico de la enfermedad. A tal efecto medimos la concentración sérica de testosterona, estradiol y antígeno carcinoembrionario en varones con cáncer de colón o recto, comparándola con un grupo testigo portador de patología gastrointestinal benigna. El análisis estadístico mostró diferencias altamente significaticas entre testosterona de la población tumoral y el grupo control, las que se mantuyvieron al comparar el grupo testigo con los pacientes prequiúrgicos y con los post-quirúgicos. Se observaron valores patológicos de testosterona en el 59 por ciento de los pacientes con cáncer. Esto indicaría una mayor sensibilidad diagnóstica que la del antígeno carcinoembrionario, que se hallaba incrementado en el 56,9 por ciento de los casos. El uso conjunto de ambos marcadores permitió detectar el 86,2 por ciento de los enfermos. La concentración del estradiol sérico no evidenció diferencias significativas respecto a la del grupo control. Se concluye que el descenso de la testosterona sérica podría constituir un valioso complemento diagnóstico en el cáncer colorrectal y que la determinación simultánea con el antígeno carcinoembrionario incrementa la capacidad de detección de esta neoplasia en indivíduos de sexo masculino

[Serum testosterone: a possible marker for colorectal cancer]. / Testosterona sérica: posible marcador en el cáncer colorrectal.

A reduction of circulating testosterone has been reported in lung, stomach and pancreatic carcinoma. In order to evaluate the concentration of this hormone in patients with colorectal cancer, we studied 58 men with histologically confirmed disease. Seric testosterone, estradiol and carcinoembryogenic antigen were simultaneously measured in 24 patients under pre-surgical evaluation (group I) and in 34 patients after surgical resection (group II). The results were compared with a control group carrying benign gastrointestinal pathologies. According to the Kruskal-Wallis test, the testosterone level in cancer groups was significantly lower than in the control group (p < 0.0001). We have also observed a statistical significance between subgroups I and II compared to the control group (p < 0.001), while no conspicuous differences were perceived in estradiol concentrations between benign and cancer groups. Decreased serum levels of testosterone were found in 69% of patients with colon or rectal carcinoma and 56.9% of them had raised levels of carcinoembryonic antigen. The combined determination of both biomarkers increase to 86.2% the sensitivity of tumor screening compared with a single detection. Our results suggest that the combination of testosterone and carcinoembryonic antigen enhances the efficiency of tumor screening. We conclude that the evaluation of circulating testosterone could be a new and more sensitive assay for diagnosis and follow-up of colorectal carcinoma in males, specially in patients with normal levels of carcinoembryonic antigen.

Additional psychiatric illness by Diagnostic Interview Schedule in male alcoholics.

Seventy-four male veterans entering an alcohol abuse treatment program were screened for additional psychiatric diagnoses using the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS). Fifty-four of these also completed a questionnaire on personal and family drinking history. Over half (54.1%) had another diagnosis. The most common syndromes other than substance abuse were antisocial personality disorder, phobic disorder, and depression. In each of these cases, the presence of the additional disorder accelerated the course of the alcohol problem significantly. The difference in course between syndromes was dwarfed by the time of presentation by the difference between "pure" alcoholism and alcoholism with another diagnosis. The primary versus secondary distinction appeared to account for only a part of this effect.

Assessment of genetic predisposition to alcoholism in male alcoholics.

Association between the history of alcoholism in different relatives with the development of alcoholism in male probands was analysed using the rate of development of alcoholism as a marker of genetic predisposition. It was found that a history of alcoholism in parents, grandparents and siblings of parents was associated with an accelerated rate in the development of alcoholism while a history of alcoholism in siblings and children of probands was not. The rate of development of alcoholism was positively associated with the number of generations of the proband's family in which alcoholism occurred.

Relationship of family history of alcoholism to patterns of drinking and physical dependence in male alcoholics.

The occurrence of physical dependence, morning drinking and binge drinking was assessed in alcoholic men in relation to family history of problem drinking. The incidence of physical dependence, binge drinking and morning drinking was higher in men with a family history of problem drinking than in men without such a history. Physical dependence also developed earlier in family history positive subjects than in family history negative ones. The incidence of physical dependence was higher in subjects who reported binge drinking or morning drinking than in others. These results indicate that family history of problem drinking is associated with severe alcohol abuse resulting in early development of physical dependence.

Learning to associate names and faces. Impaired acquisition on an ecologically relevant memory task by male alcoholics.

The performance of a group of detoxified male chronic alcoholics was compared with that of age-matched nonalcoholic controls on a memory task which at face value seemed relevant to daily life--i.e., learning to associate people's names with their faces. The alcoholics not only made more errors while learning the face-name associations than did the controls, but fewer of them were able to reach the learning criterion. However, 1 hour later, the alcoholics were nevertheless able to recognize all of the faces and names used during acquisition. The savings scores for the alcoholics, an index of the relative number of face-name associations retained during the 1-hour interval, did not differ significantly from those of the controls. These results demonstrate that the alcoholics' paired-associate learning deficit on this ecologically relevant task is related to their failure to form associations rather than to deficiencies in recognition memory or perceptual processes.

Variation in length of time to development of alcoholism by family history of problem drinking.

Patients hospitalized for treatment of alcoholism were asked to provide information on family history of drinking problems, age at onset of drinking, and timing of the occurrence of problems due to use of alcohol in their lives, using a time scale. Analysis of data from 256 male patients indicated a strong association between a family history of problem drinking and development of alcoholism at a young age. Mean age at the time the patients could be defined as alcoholic, based on the chronological history of the time of occurrence of symptoms, ranged from 27.2 years for bilineal family history positive patients to 38.5 years for those with negative family history, and the difference could not be explained by differences in age at onset of drinking. The results indicate that the increased risk of alcoholism among individuals with family history of problem drinking, which has been postulated on the basis of many cross-sectional studies, is likely to be overestimated.

A comparison of the effects of long-term alcohol abuse and aging on the performance of verbal and nonverbal divided attention tasks.

The purpose of this study was to assess two versions of the hypothesis that alcohol abuse results in premature aging of the brain and of cognitive functioning. The performances of detoxified long-term alcoholic was compared with that of nonalcoholic controls on three divided attention tasks known to be sensitive to aging. While both forms of the premature aging hypothesis predicted that alcoholics should perform more poorly than controls, the hypotheses differed in their predictions of the interactions between the effects of alcohol and normal aging. The results showed that while all three tasks were sensitive to age, only two were affected by long-term alcohol abuse. On one of the tests affected by both age and alcohol abuse, the performance of both young and old alcoholics was equally impaired whereas on the other, only the older alcoholics had significant difficulties. Based on these findings it was concluded that there was only partial overlap between the effects of alcohol and aging, and that neither of the two forms of the premature aging hypothesis could predict the observed pattern of results.