Diverse presentations in pediatric Meckel's diverticulum are affected by different ectopic tissue types and male sex. Laparoscopic surgery is widely used for children with non-obstructive symptoms.

Abstractmortality following surgery of the collected series of Kilman et al 2 was about 7%. In larger Background -Pulmonary aspergilloma has been treated surgically for many years single series reported by Jewkes et al 3 and Daly et al 4 the mortality following surgery was as but the mortality rates of larger surgical series, varying from 7% to 23%, is not high as 14% (seven of 49) and 23% (12 of 53), respectively. Even in the more recent study considered acceptable by today's standards. The authors report their experience reported by Massard et al in 1992 5 it was around 9%. The major cause of surgical mortality rein the surgical treatment of pulmonary aspergilloma and present a review of the mains obscure and the most common type of morbidity is not well known. We present a literature. Methods -Sixty seven patients who under-review of the surgical mortality and morbidity reported in the literature and present our exwent thoracotomy for pulmonary aspergilloma from 1968 to 1995 were studied perience with the surgical treatment of pulmonary aspergilloma at the National Taiwan retrospectively by reviewing their medical records.University Hospital over a period of 28 years. Results -The most common clinical presentation of pulmonary aspergilloma was haemoptysis which occurred in 61 patients Methods (91.0%). Tuberculosis was the most com-Between 1968 and 1995, 72 patients were mon pre-existing disease, occurring in 54 identified pathologically at the National Taiwan patients (80.6%). The plain chest radio-University Hospital as having pulmonary aspergraph showed the typical "air-crescent" gillomas. Treatment with transarterial emsign in 36 patients (53.7%). Systemic anti-bolisation was tried unsuccessfully in nine fungal therapy neither palliated the patients and all eventually resorted to surgery. clinical symptoms nor eradicated the Antifungal chemotherapy with amphotericin B aspergilloma, and transarterial em-(1.0-1.5 mg/kg/day), alone or combined with bolisation was also unsuccessful. Surgery flucytocine (100-150 mg/kg/day), was given to offered the only chance of cure for both 19 patients, five of whom are excluded from unilateral and bilateral disease. Pro-the study because they did not undergo surgery. cedures varied from segmentectomy to Thus, a total of 67 cases (46 men) of mean pneumonectomy with most (61.4%) age 40.2 years (range 20-73) were enrolled into undergoing lobectomy. There was one the study. The aspergillomas were classified death following surgery from pneumonia according to the system of Belcher and Plumand 15 postoperative complications oc-mer. 6 Simple aspergillomas had thin-walled curred in 12 patients -empyema (7), mas-cysts with little or no surrounding parenchymal sive bleeding (3), bronchopleural fistula lung disease and complex ones had thick-walled (115-4000) ml for bilobectomy or lobectomy were both over 50%.The medical records were reviewed for pre-with segmentectomy, and 2065 (1200-3000) ml for pneumonectomy. The mean quantity senting symptoms, preceding lung disease, chest ra...

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Hypermethylation in the promoter region of the p16 gene was suspected to be involved in the tumorigenesis of colorectal cancers, although its clinical and biological significance remains obscure. In this study, we collected 84 T3N0M0 stage primary colorectal cancers that were curatively resected. The clinicopathologic data were reviewed. p16 hypermethylation was determined by a methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR). p53 overexpression was detected by immunocytochemistry (ICC). The point mutations in the 12 and 13 codons of the K-ras gene were screened by restriction enzyme analysis. Loss of heterozygosity (LOH) of the DCC (Deleted in Colorectal cancer) gene was examined by PCR using primers of the DCC (18q21) microsatellite marker. The DNA replication error (RER) was examined using 7 microsatellite markers at distinct chromosomal loci. p16 hypermethylation, regarded as an indication of p16 inactivation, was evident in 24 (28.6%) of the tumors. No correlation was found between p16 hypermethylation and various clinicopathologic factors, includinig age, sex, tumor location, tumor size, growth pattern, tumor differentiation, mucin production, vascular and/or lymphatic invasion, lymphocyte infiltration of the tumor, and serum level of carcinoembryonic antigen. There was no association between p16 hypermethylation of K-ras gene mutation, p53 overexpression and LOH of the DCC gene. However, p16 hypermethylation was significantly associated with DNA RER (p = 0.01). Survival analysis revealed a significant survival disadvantage of p16-hypermethylated versus non-p16-hypermethylated tumors (p = 0.0001). These findings indicate that p16 hypermethylation plays a role in the carcinogenesis of a subset of colorectal cancers; and the presence of p16 hypermethylation predicts shorter survival in T3N0M0 stage colorectal cancers.

Background: Because the gene expression patterns of nonobese hepatic steatosis in affected patients remain unclear, we sought to explore these patterns using an animal model of nonobese hepatic steatosis.