ABSTRACT Background: The most common sites of origin for neuroendocrine carcinoma are gastrointestinal tract and its accessory glands, and lungs. Materials and Methods: One.hundred fifty cases diagnosed with metastatic brain lesions were retrieved from hospital records within 5 years. For these cases, the primary neoplasm, histopathological classification, metastasis, treatment, and fate all were studied. Results: Intracranial deposits were detected in 10%. The primary lesion was in the lungs in 87% of patients, and 1 patient in the breast and 1 in esophagus. Pathological classification of the primary lesion was Grade 2 (MIB.1: 3.20%) in 1 patient and neuroendocrine carcinoma (MIB.1: .21%) in 14 patients. The median period from onset of the primary lesion up to diagnosis of brain metastasis was 12.8 months. About 33% of patients had a single metastasis whereas 67% patients had multiple metastases. Brain metastasis was extirpated in 33% of patients. Stereotactic radiotherapy alone was administered in 20% of patients, and brain metastasis was favorably controlled in most of the patients with coadministration of cranial irradiation as appropriate. The median survival period from diagnosis of brain metastasis was 8.1 months. Conclusion: Most of patients with brain metastasis from neuroendocrine carcinoma showed the primary lesion in the lungs, and they had multiple metastases to the liver, lymph nodes, bones, and so forth at the time of diagnosis of brain metastasis. Theguidelines for accurate diagnosis and treatment of neuroendocrine carcinoma should be immediately established based on further analyses of those patients with brain metastasis

Introduction: β-Thalassemia is an inherited abnormal condition that results in hemolytic anemia. It is the most common monogenic disorder in the world. The Mediterranean countries have the highest prevalence of β-thalassemia (2%-18%), and in Egypt, it is 9% to 10%. Regular multiblood transfusion and iron chelation are the major line of therapy for thalassemic patients. There are relatively low blood transfusion safety standards in the Third World countries. Hepatitis C virus (HCV) has the highest risk of transfusion transmitted diseases and Egypt has the highest HCV prevalence worldwide. Method: Our study is aimed to assess the risk of HCV transmitted to thalassemic patients that receive regular blood transfusions by focusing on the statistics of this population. The study covered most Egyptian governorates from Nile Delta and Upper Egypt by collecting patients’ data between 2015 and 2018. Results: Consecutive studies were done on 946 β-thalassemic patients as demonstrated from the following: Cairo (205), Mansoura (36), Tanta (120), Damanhur (125), Alexandria (119), Zagazig (73), AlFayoum (121), and Sohag and Minia (147). Studies showed that the HCV-transmitted infection in thalassemia patients in Upper Egypt were detected at 37%, while some Nile Delta studies illustrated that 20% were infected with HCV from transfused thalassemia patients due to multiple blood transfusions. Conclusion: Blood transfusion–transmitted hepatitis C virus has a very high rate among Egyptian thalassemic patients compared to the worldwide rate. Common anti-HCV antibody screening assay has a low sensitivity and specificity compared to nucleic acid amplification testing (NAT). Therefore, our study recommends following the American Association of Blood Bank (AABB) guidelines for blood donation screenings and implementation of viral NAT testing to reduce the risk of viral transmission during the “window period.” This will reduce the time for effective detection from 70 to 10 days for HCV.

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