Introduction: Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) relies on host lipids for its life cycle contributing to lipid abnormalities and hepatic steatosis. Disease progression is influenced by viral factors interacting with host immune and metabolic pathways. The significance of serum lipids for Chronic Hepatitis C (CHC) assessment is not clearly established yet.

Fine-needle aspiration biopsy has been employed to establish morphologic diagnoses in abdominal and retroperitoneal tumors in 54 infants and children. A 0.4-0.7-mm gauge needle was used; the puncture was performed through the anterior abdominal wall in the abdominal tumors and by the lateral approach in the retroperitoneal tumors. Malignant tumors were discovered in 51 cases (94.4%). The nature of the lesion was recognized in 96.2%, and correct cell typing was achieved in 90.2%. The most frequent lesion was non-Hodgkin's malignant lymphoma, followed by neuroblastoma, nephroblastoma, and individual cases of other epithelial and mesenchymal tumors. Using parallel bone marrow examination, half of the neuroblastoma cases and five of 28 lymphoma cases showed bone marrow involvement. We observed no complications caused by the fine-needle aspiration technique. Due to the safety and efficacy of this technique, it can often be used instead of explorative laparatomy.

A case with a complex chromosome abnormality with a t(2;2)(p23;q23) in CD30+/Ki-1+ anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) is described. This chromosome aberration has not been reported previously in neoplastic diseases and was associated with T-cell phenotype and involvement of the nasopharynx by the tumour.

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Etude morphometrique de certaines structures nucleoproteiques des noyaux de lymphocytes cultives in vitro en presence de phytohdmagglutinine lnstitut de Recherches Scientifiques sur le Cancer, VillejuifO et Centre de Physiologie et d'lmmunologie Cellulaires, HBpital Saint-Antoine, Paris'During blast transformation by phytohemagglutinin (PHA) of cultured guinea pig lymphocytes, a morphometric analysis of the variation in number of perichromatin granules relative to nuclear size and t o decrements in the surface areas of condensed chromatin has been performed. Data were obtained by means of a Hewlett-Packard 9810 A computer equipped with a device for quantitation of surface areas.It was demonstrated that those cells capable of being transformed by PHA had significantly less perichromatin granules (both before and after transformation) than did nontransformed, cultivated cells, suggesting that T cells could be distinguished from B cells by this criterion. Consequently, avian lymphocytes were examined and it was found that lymphocytes obtained from the avian bursa of Fabricius contained more perichromatin granules than did those harvested from the thymus.Both observations suggest that the number of perichromatin granules may be a sensitive index of lymphocyte type.