Immunostaining of tumor cells for MCM2 is an independent prognostic parameter of survival for patients with NSCLC. Interpretable results can be obtained on more than 96% of paraffin-embedded specimens, and approximately 35% will be in the favorable subgroup, with less than 25% positively stained tumor cells. Whether MCM2 is predictive of response to therapy needs to be studied.

Chronic fatigue syndrome is characterised by intense fatigue, with duration of over six months and associated to other related symptoms. The latter include asthenia and easily induced tiredness that is not recovered after a night's sleep. The fatigue becomes so severe that it forces a 50% reduction in daily activities. Given its unknown aetiology, different hypotheses have been considered to explain the origin of the condition (from immunological disorders to the presence of posttraumatic oxidative stress), although there are no conclusive diagnostic tests. Diagnosis is established through the exclusion of other diseases causing fatigue. This syndrome is rare in childhood and adolescence, although the fatigue symptom per se is quite common in paediatric patients. Currently, no curative treatment exists for patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. The therapeutic approach to this syndrome requires a combination of different therapeutic modalities. The specific characteristics of the symptomatology of patients with chronic fatigue require a rapid adaptation of the educational, healthcare and social systems to prevent the problems derived from current systems. Such patients require multidisciplinary management due to the multiple and different issues affecting them. This document was realized by one of the Interdisciplinary Work Groups from the Institute for Rare Diseases, and its aim is to point out the main social and care needs for people affected with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. For this, it includes not only the view of representatives for different scientific societies, but also the patient associations view, because they http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-244X/9/S1/S1Page 2 of 11 (page number not for citation purposes) know the true history of their social and sanitary needs. In an interdisciplinary approach, this work also reviews the principal scientific, medical, socio-sanitary and psychological aspects of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Patients with TCA amenable to reestablishment of the transanal fecal flow can have adequate growth, normal feeding, reasonably good continence and satisfactory QOL. However, complications and enterocolitis are frequent. A modified Martin's procedure was performed as well as straight ileo-anal pull-through with little influence on the long-term outcome.

Abstract-Several studies have demonstrated that endothelial dysfunction is present in patients with essential hypertension.However, the presence of endothelial dysfunction in patients with white coat hypertension has not been studied. We evaluated the variation in the diameter of the brachial artery produced by flow-mediated dilation after a mechanical stimulus in patients with recently diagnosed mild to moderate sustained essential hypertension compared with patients with white coat hypertension. A total of 29 patients fulfilled inclusion criteria; 15 healthy volunteers were also included. After 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, 15 patients were classified with sustained essential hypertension; 14 patients with white coat hypertension. Vascular ultrasound scans were performed according to the method described by Celermajer et al, with modification for noninvasive determination of endothelial dysfunction. Basal brachial artery diameter did not differ significantly among the 3 groups. Changes in arterial diameter 60 seconds after cuff deflation were higher in the control group compared with both hypertensive groups, but no significant differences were found between the sustained essential hypertension group and the white coat hypertension group. Flow-mediated dilation was similar in white coat hypertensives and sustained essential hypertensives. The presence of endothelial dysfunction in subjects with white coat hypertension suggests that it should not be considered a harmless trait and that white coat hypertension has common features with sustained essential hypertension. The prevalence of WCH has been estimated by several transversal studies between 20% and 40% among the population of mild hypertensives. 3,4 Whether this group of patients has an increased cardiovascular risk similar to that of sustained essential hypertensives (SEHs), or similar to that of normotensive subjects, is an interesting and still unsolved question that could entail therapeutic implications. 5 Only a few studies have been published about the natural history of WCH; some of them have found a higher frequency of progression to SEH compared with that of normotensive subjects. 6,7 Endothelial dysfunction (ED) is considered an early event in the development of atherosclerosis, 8 and several studies have demonstrated that ED is present in patients with essential hypertension. 9 However, the presence of ED in patients with WCH has not been studied. ED was first studied by measuring the increase of the diameter of coronary arteries after intravenous infusion of acetylcholine; the absence of vasodilation in response to acetylcholine was considered a marker of ED. 10 More recent publications studied ED by measuring vasodilation in response to acetylcholine in brachial or femoral arteries with plethysmography. 11 Nowadays, noninvasive methods based on flow-mediated dilation (FMD) after the compression of the arterial wall with a pneumatic tourniquet have been validated for the study of ED, and they are used in most recent works. 12 Th...