No abstract

Specific viral single and co-infections as well as viral load contribute to disease severity in children with LRTIs.

These findings demonstrate that CVVH can remove TNF alpha and special cytokines from the circulation of critically ill patients. Cardiovascular hemodynamics seemed to improve in septic patients after induction of hemofiltration treatment, although there was no evidence that extracorporeal removal of cytokines achieved a reduction in blood levels. The study indicates that low volume continuous hemofiltration with polysulphone membranes in patients with acute renal failure is not able to induce significant removal of cytokines.

RESULTS.Light microscopic study showed that BSCC was composed of relatively versity, Düsseldorf, Germany.small tumor cells, arranged in solid lobules with abundant comedo-type necrosis.

Rac proteins of the Rho-like GTPase family, including the ubiquitous Rac1, the hematopoiesisspecific Rac2, and the least-characterized Rac3 play a major role in oncogenic transformation, tumor invasion and metastasis. However, the prognostic relevance of Rac expression in human tumors has not been investigated yet. In the present study, Rac protein expression was analyzed in benign secretory epithelium, high-grade prostatic intraepithelium neoplasia (HG-PIN), and prostate carcinomas of 60 R0-resected radical prostatectomy specimens by semiquantitative immunohistochemistry. Thus, Rac proteins were significantly strongly expressed in HG-PIN (P!0.001) and prostate carcinomas (P!0.001) when compared with benign secretory epithelium. Accordingly, all tumor tissues analyzed by isoform-specific real-time PCR (nZ7) exhibited significantly higher RNA expression levels of Rac (i.e. sum of Rac1 and Rac3 expression levels) than the respective benign counterparts (PZ0.018) and this appeared to result mainly from increased expression of the Rac3 isoform as verified by immunoblotting. Univariate analyses showed statistically significant associations of increased Rac protein expression in prostate cancer (PZ0.045), preoperative prostate-specific antigen levels (PZ0.044), pT stage (PZ0.002), and Gleason score (PZ0.001) with decreased disease-free survival (DFS). This prognostic effect of increased protein expression of Rac remained significant even in a multivariate analysis including all these four factors (relative riskZ3.22, 95% confidence intervalZ1.04-10.00; PZ0.043). In conclusion, our data suggest that increased Rac protein expression in prostate cancer relative to the corresponding benign secretory epithelium is an independent predictor of decreased DFS and appears to result mainly from increased expression of the Rac3 isoform.