Improving the international prognostic index score using peripheral blood counts: Results of a large multicenter study involving 520 patients with diffuse large B cell lymphoma

The main purpose of this study was to assess whether it is possible to improve the prognostic impact of international prognostic index (IPI) score by combining it with peripheral blood counts. Thus, we evaluated the prognostic power of lymphocyte, neutrophil, and monocyte counts in 520 patients with diffuse large B cell lymphoma treated with R-CHOP, confirming that these parameters have a strong impact on overall survival (OS). Using revised IPI (R-IPI), 44% of patients were categorized as poor-risk and showed an OS at 5 years of 46%. As OS at 5 years of the 520 patients is 67%, it is clearly evident that R-IPI tends to overestimate the proportion of patients with poor prognosis. Accordingly, in an attempt to improve the discriminating power of R-IPI, we evaluated and compared three different scores by combining the neutrophil lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and absolute monocyte count (AMC) with the following values: (a) IPI score 3-5, (b) age > 60 years and performance status, (c) age ≥ 65 years and LDH > ULN. The three indexes studied, had a similar 5 years OS for the high-risk group (46%-52%), but the proportion of patients classified as poor-risk were 37%, 20%, and 32%, respectively, which are lower than 44% identified with R-IPI. Thus, while R-IPI overestimates the number of high-risk patients, after applying our models, it is possible to recognize patients who are truly at high-risk. Of the three scores, the most accurate appears to be that based on NLR, AMC, LDH > ULN and age ≥ 65 years, which identifies 32% of high-risk patients, correlating well with what is seen in clinical practice.     

Unpleasant Bodily Odour in a Psychoanalytic Treatment: Bridge or Drawbridge to a Troubled Past?

In this paper, I explore the topic of primitive bodily communications and countertransference enactments, with a particular focus on the part played by bodily odour. To explore this topic, I discuss a two-year treatment with a patient who presented with a mix of borderline and narcissistic diagnostic features. I describe meaningful aspects of the difficulties faced in countertransference work when receiving and making sense of the patient's use of primitive defences and I highlight their expression through a very uncomfortable symptom: an extremely unpleasant bodily smell. My thesis is that the smell communicated preverbal and unsymbolized experiences of early physical and emotional neglect, as well as evacuating the toxicity of those experiences. In this way the smell acted both as a bridge, which could help me reconstruct my patient's early traumatic past, and as a drawbridge, to keep me at distance and maintain his past dissociated. The invasive and aversive nature of the smell can also be seen as representing the approach-avoidance dilemma typical of a disorganized attachment state of mind, acting both as a bridge and as a drawbridge to attachment and relating.     

3D FEA of cemented steel, glass and carbon posts in a maxillary incisor.

OBJECTIVES: A comparative study on the stress distribution in the dentine and cement layer of an endodontically treated maxillary incisor has been carried out by using Finite Element Analysis (FEA). The role of post and cement rigidity on reliability of endodontic restorations is discussed. METHODS: A 3D FEM model (13,272 elements and 15,152 nodes) of a central maxillary incisor is presented. A chewing static force of 10 N was applied at 125 degree angle with the tooth longitudinal axis at the palatal surface of the crown. Steel, carbon and glass fiber posts have been considered. The differences in occlusal load transfer ability when steel, carbon and glass posts, fixed to root canal using luting cements of different elastic moduli (7.0 and 18.7 GPa) are discussed. RESULTS AND SIGNIFICANCE: The more stiff systems (steel and carbon posts) have been evaluated to work against the natural function of the tooth. Maximum Von Mises equivalent stress values ranging from 7.5 (steel) to 5.4 and 3.6 MPa (respectively, for carbon posts fixed with high and low cement moduli) and to 2.2 MPa (either for glass posts fixed with high and low cement moduli) have been observed under a static masticatory load of 10 N. A very stiff post works against the natural function of the tooth creating zones of tension and shear both in the dentine and at the interfaces of the luting cement and the post. Stresses in static loading do not reach material (dentine and cement) failure limits, however, they significantly differ leading to different abilities of the restored systems to sustain fatigue loading. The influence of the cement layer elasticity in redistributing the stresses has been observed to be less relevant as the post flexibility is increased.     

Autologous Unpurged Bone Marrow Transplantation for Acute Non Lymphoblastic Leukemia in First Remission

Forty consecutive adult patients under the age of 50 with acute non-lymphoblastic leukemia (ANLL) in first complete remission, underwent autologous bone marrow transplantation (ABMT) between March 1984 and April 1990. The conditioning regimen employed included cyclophosphamide and total body irradiation, followed by the administration of unpurged ABMT. The median time from diagnosis to transplant was 7 months (3-15 months), and the median time from complete remission to ABMT was 4 months (range 3-9 months). Twenty-two (51%) patients remain in complete remission 6-81 months (median 24 months) after ABMT.

The causes of death were, recurrent leukemia (11 patients), parenchymal toxicities such as acute respiratory distress syndrome and veno-occlusive disease (3 patients), hemorrhage (2 patients) and infection (2 patients). Eleven patients relapsed after 3-12 months (median 5 months). This study has produced survival data comparable to those of other institutions employing TBI for either allo or autotransplants.     

Psoas abscess: Difficulties encountered

From 1961 to 1989, 67 patients underwent various surgical procedures for psoas abscess. Retrospective analysis was undertaken in an effort to determine optimal surgical therapy. Forty patients were cured with one operation. Twenty-one patients required two operations, four patients required three operations, and two patients required more than three operations. The reason for failure of treatment was failure to resect the diseased bowel or to drain the psoas abscess adequately. A technique to recognize and treat the abscess definitively will be illustrated. The most common etiologies were Crohn's disease in 49 patients, postoperative sepsis in eight patients, and complications of renal disease in four patients. The length of hospital stay ranged from 5 to 392 days (mean, 26 days). There were two deaths. Failure to recognize and treat psoas abscess results in considerable morbidity.Poster presentation at the meeting of The American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons, St. Louis, Missouri, April 29 to May 4, 1990.     

Axonal neuropathy in a patient with monoclonal IgM kappa reactive with Schmidt-Lantermann incisures

We report a patient with a progressive, predominantly sensory neuropathy and a IgM kappa M-protein that binds to Schmidt-Lantermann incisures. A sural nerve biopsy showed primary axonal damage and IgM deposits at Schmidt-Lantermann incisures were seen by direct immunoperoxidase. Serum from the patient injected into rat sciatic nerve reacts with the incisures as with those in the patient's nerve. The IgM kappa M-protein reacts with chondroitin sulfate C and binds to a broad nerve protein band with a mobility of between 170 and 118 kDa. Peripheral neuropathy may be related to the M-protein, which had immunocytochemical reactivity not previously described for patients with polyneuropathy and IgM monoclonal gammopathy.     

Assessment of split renal function with99mTc-aprotinin

The aim of this work is to correlate the net kidney uptake of^99mTc-aprotinin (TcA) in 103 subjects with separate effective renal plasma flow (ERPF) and some blood chemistry parameters at 90, 180, and 360 min postinjection both in the normal and diseased kidney. Correlations found with separate ERPFs are highly significant at any time (P < 0.001). However, although the slope of the regression line is steeper at 180 min,r tends to deteriorate slightly with time postinjection and a higher intercept on they axis: this pattern is more pronounced if diseased kidneys are considered separately. The following are probably related to the renal handling of TcA: (1) Early scans better reflect blood flow to the kidney, while later scans are more related to the metabolism/excretion tubular mechanisms; (2) correlations found with urea, creatinine, urea clearance, and creatinine clearance are highly significant at any time; (3) in 20 additional patients with diseased kidneys, renal uptake measurements done 360 min postinjection first with TcA and then with DMSA showed better correlations with ERPF employing TcA. Our results indicate that TcA is a feasible indicator of split renal function even at 90 min postinjection when a scan is easily carried out on an outpatient basis.This paper was in part presented at the European Nuclear Medicine Congress, August 14–17, 1984, Helsinki, Finland