The results indicate that polyurethane is readily encrusted and colonized by bacteria in vivo despite antibiotic prophylaxis. Newer materials must be sought if effective long-term stenting is to be achieved.

Between 1957 and 1987, 6 cases of intrascrotal rhabdomyosarcoma were found in the pathology records for Northern Ireland. Four of these tumours arose from paratesticular tissue and 2 were confined to the testis. Only 1 patient has died of his disease. Two were lost to follow-up after 21 years and are presumed cured. The remaining 3 remain alive and disease-free between 2 and 3 1/2 years after presentation.

Research into the death receptor pathways has demonstrated the key role that pathway aberrations have in the initiation and progression of malignancies of the bladder, prostate and kidney. This new understanding has resulted in exciting approaches to restore the functionality of these pathways as a novel therapeutic strategy.

Much current research in bladder cancer is aimed at restoring chemosensitivity by shifting the cell toward a pro-apoptotic phenotype. Successful translation of this work into clinical practice may improve survival in patients in whom prognosis is currently poor.

Susceptibility to coeliac disease involves HLA and non-HLA-linked genes. The CTLA4\CD28 gene region encodes immune regulatory T-cell surface molecules and is a strong candidate as a susceptibility locus. We evaluated CTLA4\CD28 in coeliac disease by genetic linkage and association and combined our findings with published studies through a meta-analysis. 116 multiplex families were genotyped across CTLA4\CD28 using eight markers. The contribution of CTLA4\CD28 to coeliac disease was assessed by non-parametric linkage and association analyses. Seven studies were identified that had evaluated the relationship between CTLA4\CD28 and coeliac disease and a pooled analysis of data undertaken. In our study there was evidence for a relationship between variation in the CTLA4\CD28 region and coeliac disease by linkage and association analyses. However, the findings did not attain formal statistical significance ( p l 0n004 and 0n039, respectively). Pooling findings with published results showed significant evidence for linkage (504 families) and association (940 families) : p values, 0n0001 and 0n0014 at D2S2214, respectively, and 0n0008 and 0n0006 at D2S116, respectively. These findings suggest that variation in the CD28\CTLA4 gene region is a determinant of coeliac disease susceptibility. Dissecting the sequence variation underlying this relationship will depend on further analyses utilising denser sets of markers.