ABSTRACT
Neonatal soft tissue sarcomas are a rare group of tumors. The behavior and aggressiveness of neonatal STS is variable. Surgical excision has been noted to be most important factor affecting outcome. However, when non-mutilating surgery is not possible, or resection is incomplete, chemotherapy and radiotherapy have been tried with variable success. We encountered a case of a neonate having large soft tissue mass at anterior abdominal wall. Biopsy and immunohistochemistry confirmed it as undifferentiated soft tissue sarcoma. Surgical excision was incomplete with margin positivity. His disease showed recurrence in short duration of time and despite adjuvant chemotherapy, progression was noted. The child abandoned the treatment and died within 3 months of life.
ABSTRACT
The study describes a case of hyper-eosinophilia who was presented with overt manifestation of high eosinophil and detected to have underlying non Hodgkin lymphoma. The male patient was presented with profound weakness and multiple non itchy nodular skin lesion for 2 weeks. Biopsy from skin nodule showed deposits of abnormal lymphocytes. Lymph node biopsy showed effacement with mono nuclear abnormal cells which showed positivity for CD4 and 5, negative for cytokeratin and CD20. He was diagnosed to have T-NHL. [Fig. 3a, Fig. 3b] Bone marrow showed involvement by NHL cells. His diplopia and headache responded to intra-thecal methotrexate and possibly CNS involvement of disease was considered. Family opted out of allopathic treatment plan due to clinical progression. He later died of disease progression. This case illustrates the rare and interesting association of overt clinical hyper-eosinophilia and T NHL. The study suggests that cases with hyper eosinophilia should be evaluated thoroughly for T cell disease.
ABSTRACT
The hepatitis B vaccine is considered to be highly immunogenic and has a good safety profile. In adults, it has a primary non-response rate of 5%-10%. Causes of nonresponse to hepatitis B vaccine include age, sex, obesity smoking. Certain human leucocyte antigen (HLA) phenotypes have been known to be associated with responsiveness to the vaccine, and found to be different in different ethnic groups, such as Caucasians and Orientals. The study was designed to identify the HLA phenotypes that are associated with non-responsiveness to hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccination amongst a cohort of Indian subjects who agreed to participate in the vaccination programme. The study was offered to 107 volunteers, of whom 102 were found to be negative for HBV markers (hepatitis B surface antigen [HBsAg], anti-HBc, anti-HBe, anti-HBs, hepatitis Be antigen [HBeAg]) . All 102 volunteers were offered recombinant hepatitis B vaccine (20 microg) at 0, 1, and 6 months. Anti-HBs antibody titres were tested on days 90 and 210 of the first vaccine dose. HLA typing was done using standard microlymphotoxicity tests. The seroconversion rate of the hepatitis B vaccine was 86.3% (88/102). Fifteen nonresponders (15/102) and 15 of the 88 responders were randomly selected after age and sex matching for the purpose of studying the HLA phenotypes. HLA subtypes A1, B15, B40, A10 and DQ2 were found to be increased among nonresponders while HLA- A11, C3, DR10, DR51 (p>0.05) were the most common phenotypes amongst the responders. Further studies are needed to characterize the HLA phenotypes amongst the responders in different ethnic groups in India with respect to HBV vaccination.