No abstract

A total of twelve patients with a relatively uncommon form of progressive sensorineural deafness (autoimmune inner-ear disease) were treated orally with 1 mg/kg azathioprine, once daily, and with 30 mg prednisolone, every other day, for 4 weeks. Statistically significant increases in the ability to hear pure tones or in discrimination on audiometry took place in 10/12 patients. This condition was initially described as 'sensorineural hearing loss', but it is now clear that the term 'autoimmune inner-ear disease' is more appropriate since the vestibular compartment as well as the cochlear compartment is involved. This relatively uncommon disease is one of the few forms of sensorineural deafness that can be successfully treated.

No abstract

In this study, our aim was to investigate the prognostic features of the thymidine labeling index (TLI) in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). The TLI values in tumor tissues and adjacent healthy tissues were assessed in 40 patients who had a pathological diagnosis of laryngeal SCC. The data were correlated with age, pTNM, histological grade and recurrence. The tissues (tumor and adjacent tumor-free tissue) obtained during surgery were labeled with ³H-thymidine. A statistically significant difference was observed between tumoral tissue and adjacent tumor-free tissue (p < 0.05), but we could not confirm any statistically significant correlation between TLI and age, pTNM, histological grade and recurrence. In conclusion, TLI in laryngeal SCC had no significant relation with the clinicopathological features, probably due to the variation in tissue sampling and for tumor-dependent reasons. TLI may assist in differentiating malignant from benign lesions.