Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic performance of strain ratio elastography in the assessment of retrobulbar orbital fat tissue. Materials and methods: The retrobulbar fat tissue of 14 eyes in 14 participants was scanned by sonoelastography. All the participants had permanent vision loss secondary to glaucoma in at least one eye. The elasticity scores were determined and the strain ratio was based on the comparison of the average strain measured in the retrobulbar fat tissue around the optic nerve at the same depth. Results: The mean strain values for the optic nerve (B) and the retrobulbar fat tissue (A) were 0.78±0.61 and 1.43±0.99, respectively (p=0.005). The mean strain ratio (B/A) was 0.56±0.24. Conclusion: This preliminary study showed that by providing strain values and ratios of different orbital tissues sonoelastography may have a potential use in the diagnosis and follow-up of orbital inflammatory and infiltrative diseases.

The authors present the case of a 6-month-old infant with a cavernous hemangioma of the parietal bone and discuss the radiological, operative, and pathological features and differential diagnosis of these extremely rare lesions in infants. Only 1 case of an infant with a calvarial cavernous hemangioma without intracranial invasion has previously been reported, and that case involved a 4 month old. Although a cavernous hemangioma of the calvaria is extremely rare in the newborn, this condition should be included in the differential diagnosis of calvarial lesions. During surgical treatment of calvarial cavernous hemangiomas, utmost attention should be paid to avoid blood loss, which could be fatal in infants.

Primary stenting is an effective and reliable approach for complex plaques in stenoses. Patency of the arterial segment with a smooth lumen can be created without the risk of acute complications such as distal embolization, dissection, or occlusion.

To extend our understanding of potential stepwise genetic alterations that may underlie tumor progression from low-grade astrocytomas to glioblastomas, histopathologic and comparative genomic hybridization analyses were performed on tumor specimens from 68 primary lesions, including 40 glioblastomas, 10 anaplastic and 18 low-grade astrocytomas. The number of aberrations per case increased towards the higher grade tumors (grade II: 1.66+/-1.49; grade III: 2.80+/-1.68; grade IV: 3.02+/-1.07; F=6.955, p=0.002). A gain of 7/7q was common and the most frequently seen aberration in low-grade astrocytomas, whereas loss of 10q was the most frequently seen anomaly in anaplastic astrocytomas and glioblastomas. Chromosome 7p amplification was only detected in glioblastomas. Chromosome 10/10q deletion and combination of 1p, 19q and 17p deletions were specific to high-grade astrocytic tumors. Sequences of chromosome 7 and 10 seem to have pivotal roles in the biology of human gliomas. The genomic copy deletions of chromosomes 1p and 19q might provide an alternative mechanism in the genesis of astrocytomas.

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