Segmental Scleral Buckle Surgical Technique for Repair of a Rhegmatogenous Retinal Detachment in Retinoblastoma: A Case and Review of the Literature.

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to describe the surgical repair of a rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (RRD) with a posterior break in a child with retinoblastoma (RB). METHODS: Retrospective case report and review of the English language literature. Retrospective review of an 11-month-old male with bilateral retinoblastoma who developed a RRD with a posterior retinal break in his better-seeing eye after treatment with cryotherapy. A review of all published cases to date of RRD in patients with RB is presented. RESULTS: The patient underwent a posterior segmental scleral buckle without subretinal fluid drainage with successful reattachment of the retina and no extraocular extension of RB. CONCLUSIONS: RRDs in RB patients may be successfully repaired with anatomic success and no extraocular tumor extension. Even for patients with a posterior break, a segmental scleral buckle without drainage of subretinal fluid is a viable option and long-term excellent vision is a possible outcome.

Divergent genetic strata in five Bahamian islands.

Based on historical records, the genetic landscape of the Bahamian archipelago is presumed to be complex and to exhibit island-specific characteristics, yet the genetic composition of the island chain, which could corroborate or refute these past accounts, remains poorly defined. As such, the current investigation was undertaken to genetically characterize 5 Bahamian populations representing the Northwest (Grand Bahama and Abaco) and Central (Eleuthera, Exuma and Long Island) Bahamas across the 15 autosomal Identifiler loci routinely employed in forensic analyses. Altogether, our findings suggest that Bahamians are a genetically heterogeneous group, with each island sampled receiving differential contributions from African, European, East Asian and Native American sources. Even though the strongest genetic signal in all 5 collections emanates from continental Africa, inter-island differentiation is noted in both the Structure and admixture analyses. The presence of alleles not in common among the 5 insular populations also signals genetic heterogeneity among the islands of the archipelago. This is especially the case when considering the Long Island population, which exhibits statistically significant genetic differences in relation to the other Bahamian collections and the New World groups of African descent (Afro-American and Afro-Caribbean) in the G-test pair-wise comparisons, even after application of the Bonferroni adjustment.

Regionalized autosomal STR profiles among Armenian groups suggest disparate genetic influences.

The archeology and ethnology of Armenia suggest that this region has acted as a crossroads for human migrations from Europe and the Middle East since at least the Neolithic. Near continual foreign influx has, in turn, led to the supposition that the gene pools of geographically separated Armenian populations may have diverged as differing historical influences potentially left distinct genetic traces in the various regions of the Armenian plateau. In this study, we seek to address whether any evidence for such genetic regional partitioning in Armenians exists by analyzing, for the first time, 15 autosomal short tandem repeat (STR) loci in 404 Armenians from four geographically well-characterized collections (Ararat Valley, Gardman, Sasun, and Lake Van) that represent distinct communities from across Historical Armenia. In addition, to determine whether genetic differences among these four Armenian populations are the result of differential affinities to populations of known historical influence in Armenia, we utilize 27 biogeographically targeted reference populations for phylogenetic and admixture analyses. From these examinations, we find that while close genetic affiliations exist between the two easternmost Armenian groups analyzed, Ararat Valley and Gardman, the remaining two populations display substantial distinctions. In particular, Sasun is distinguished by evidence for genetic contributions from Turkey, while a stronger Balkan component is detected in Lake Van, potentially suggestive of remnant genetic influences from ancient Greek and Phrygian populations in this region.