No abstract

This paper reports on a 55-year-old female who had undergone middle ear surgery 12 years previously and was admitted with a 6-months history of unilateral hearing loss and facial weakness. MRI and CT demonstrated a space-occupying lesion arising from the temporal bone and extending into the posterior fossa. Treatment consisted in complete tumour removal. Temporal and mastoid bone destruction associated with typical histological features led to the diagnosis of neoplasm of endolymphatic sac origin. Clinical, histological, radiological and intra-operative features of these rare tumours are described and discussed. The pertinent literature is reviewed.

163 cases of supratentorial astrocytomas and glioblastomas were evaluated retrospectively after close-meshed observation and treatment. We attached the greatest importance to the reevaluation of already known prognostic parameters and to the temporal analysis of the course of gliomas. We could confirm the influence of the histologic grade on the survival time. Histologic grading by means of immunohistochemistry proved to be more precise than grading only by means of HE staining. Furthermore, the patient's age was one of the most important prognostic variables for survival time after operation. Other factors were the first preoperative Karnofsky rating, the preoperative diameter of the tumour, the duration of preoperative symptoms and the interval between operation and diagnosis of tumour recurrence as well as between tumour recurrence and reoperation. Epileptic seizures as preoperative symptoms were found to be far less prognostic for survival time. Localisation of the tumour, other preoperative symptoms, Karnofsky rating before reoperation and the extent of tumour resection proved to be of no importance for survival time.

Thirty-four pineals of 18-month-old rats were studied, of which 12 belonged to animals exposed to 7% and 13 to a group exposed to 10% oxygen in breathing gas. Nine pineals were from controls kept under normoxic conditions. For comparison 2 pineals of 6-week-old rats were also examined. No influence of hypoxia on histology of the pineal gland can be stated. In this the pineal behaves like other parts of the rat brain, which in previous experiments has been shown to adapt well to low-oxygen concentrations. Also no important difference between pineals of young and advanced aged rats were found by us. In 8 of 34 pineals striated muscle cells were present. We consider this an important finding, as pineal cells have a unique differentiation potential in cell culture systems and in tumorous lesions of the pineal. As rats exposed to severe hypoxia exhibit body organ changes indicating stress, it would be interesting to measure melatonin secretion and pineal melatonin content under prolonged and increasing hypoxic conditions.