BackgroundCastleman’s disease is a rare lymphoproliferative disorder of unknown etiology that most commonly presents as a mediastinal nodal mass. It is exceptionally uncommon for Castleman’s disease to present in the mesentery and, only 53 cases have ever been described in the literature. Standard treatment for this lymphoproliferative disorder involving a single node is a complete “en bloc” surgical resection which has proven to be a curative approach in almost all cases without recurrence after 20 years of follow up. All 53 reported cases of mesenteric Castleman’s disease, except one, were treated with laparotomy.Case presentationWe report on a case of mesenteric Castleman’s disease localized in the mesentery which is the second reported case if its kind and was treated by a laparoscopic-assisted procedure. Our female patient had an uneventful postoperative course and was discharged in the 5th post-operative day. No signs of recurrence were present as evidenced by physical examination and total body CT scan 24 months after the operation. We compare our case with the other reported cases in which Castleman’s disease presented as an isolated mass in the abdomen.ConclusionAlthough a rare disease, Unicentric Castleman’s disease should always be considered when a solid asymptomatic abdominal mass is occasionally presented. The laparoscopic approach (LA) allows for the achievement of better results than open surgery, including a reduction in postoperative pain and length of hospital stay. In cases of masses of an uncertain nature, LA must be considered the last diagnostic tool and the first treatment one.

No abstract

Bovine herpesvirus type 4 (BHV-4) belongs to the gamma-2-herpesviruses of the Gammaherpesvirinae subfamily. BHV-4 has a worldwide distribution and has been isolated in a variety of clinical diseases as well as from healthy cattle. In this report we demonstrate that BHV-4 induces apoptosis in MDBK cells. In the early phases of apoptosis, cells show an increase in the intracellular level of reactive oxygen species, which is indicative of oxidative stress. This precedes DNA fragmentation, a hallmark typical of apoptosis. Cells were protected from apoptosis only by certain antioxidants (butylated hydroxyanisole and ebselen), whereas N-acetylcysteine turned out to be ineffective. Antioxidants that protected cells from apoptosis prevented oxidative stress but failed to block virus growth. These observations suggest that oxidative stress may be a crucial event in the sequence leading to apoptotic cell death but apoptosis is not required for the multiplication of BHV-4.

A seroprevalence survey of Neospora caninum and bovine herpesvirus 1 (BHV-1) was conducted in cattle pasturing in an area of the southern Italian Apennines to investigate the coinfection of these two pathogens. Blood samples were collected from 948 pastured cattle raised on 81 farms. Sera were tested for antibodies to N. caninum and to BHV-1 using an ELISA assay and a neutralization test, respectively. Out of the 81 farms sampled, 63 (77.8%) were positive for N. caninum and 80 (98.8%) for BHV-1. Coinfection was found in 62 (76.5%) farms. Out of the 948 bovine sera samples, 303 (32.0%) had antibodies to N. caninum and 735 (77.5%) to BHV-1. The copresence of antibodies to N. caninum and BHV-1 was found in 256 (27.0%) cattle. The logistic regression results indicated that seropositivity for BHV-1 was a risk factor for N. caninum seropositivity and seropositivity for N. caninum was a risk factor for BHV-1 seropositivity.

No abstract