ABSTRACT
Objective: To determine the sensitivity and specificity of transabdominal ultrasonography [US] in staging of Wilms tumor, taking transabdominal contrast enhanced computed tomography [CT] of abdomen as gold standard. Study Design: Cross sectional/validation study. Place and Duration of Study: Radiology department, Children Hospital, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, Islamabad, from Apr 2006 to Mar 2007
Material and Methods: Thirty patients presenting with Wilms tumor underwent transabdominal ultrasound and CT abdomen with contrast for staging. All of them were evaluated for age, gender, presenting complaints, signs and symptoms. As patients were children so consent was taken from their parents. X-ray chest of all of the patients was done to exclude pulmonary metastasis
Results: For stage-I: Ultrasound correctly staged 10 out of 15 cases of stage-I [66.6%] and over staged 5 out of 15 cases of stage-I [33.3%]. For stage-II: Ultrasound correctly staged 2 out of 8 cases of stage-II [25%] and incorrectly staged 6 out of 8 cases of stage-II [75%]. For stage-III: Ultrasound correctly staged 4 out of 7 cases of stage-III [57%] and incorrectly staged 3 out of 7 cases of stage-III [43%]
Conclusion: In children, ultrasound abdomen plays a vital role in cases of renal tumors for differential diagnosis, staging, monitoring of therapy and surgical planning. Diagnostic information obtained from CT and ultrasound examinations are complementary in many instances, however, computed tomography [CT] has been shown to be superior to ultrasound [US] in this regard
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: Schizophrenia is a chronic neuropsychiatric disease afflicting around 1.1% of the population worldwide. Recently, MIR137, CACNA1C, CSMD1, DRD2, and GRM3 have been reported as the most robustly emerging candidates involved in the etiology of schizophrenia. In this case control study, we performed an association analysis of rs1625579 (MIR137), rs1006737, rs4765905 (CACNA1C), rs10503253 (CSMD1), rs1076560 (DRD2), rs12704290, rs6465084, and rs148754219 (GRM3) in Pakistani population. METHODS: Schizophrenia was diagnosed on the basis of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 4th ed (DSM-IV). Detailed clinical information, family history of all patients and healthy controls were collected. RFLP based case control association study was performed in a Pakistani cohort of 508 schizophrenia patients and 300 healthy control subjects. Alleles and genotype frequencies were calculated using SPSS. RESULTS: A significant difference in the genotype and allele frequencies for rs4765905, rs1076560 and rs6465084 were found between the patients and controls (p=0.000). CONCLUSION: This study provides substantial evidence supporting the role of CACNA1C, GRM3 and DRD2 as schizophrenia susceptibility genes in Pakistani population.