Quality of life following surgery for intracranial meningiomas at Brigham and Women's Hospital: a study of 164 patients using a modification of the functional assessment of cancer therapy-brain questionnaire.

The objective of this study was to determine the subjectively reported quality of life (QOL) of patients with meningiomas surgically treated. Demographic, medical and outcomes data on 164 patients were retrospectively analyzed with the use of the Brain Tumor Center database at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA. The patients were contacted via a telephone survey and were asked 26 standardized QOL questions based on a modification of the validated Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Brain (FACT-BR) Study, which used only questions adjuvant to brain tumor patients. The patients' ages ranged from 23 to 87 years. The mean follow-up time after intracranial surgery was 33 months and median follow-up time was 28 months, with a range of 0 to 165 months. Of those 164 patients still living, 95% (155) participated in the telephone survey. 80% reported being satisfied with their post-treatment quality of life; 86% reported that they could write, read, drive and return to work at their pre-morbid level of functioning; 87% described themselves as 'independent' and able to act on their own initiatives. Our study found a high level of satisfaction for QOL in patients who have undergone surgery for intracranial meningiomas. Patients, by their own report, are able to lead independent, personally satisfying, meaningful and productive lives. This provides useful information to share with patients in discussions regarding surgical treatment of these lesions.

Dystrophin expression in the mdx mouse restored by stem cell transplantation.

The development of cell or gene therapies for diseases involving cells that are widely distributed throughout the body has been severely hampered by the inability to achieve the disseminated delivery of cells or genes to the affected tissues or organ. Here we report the results of bone marrow transplantation studies in the mdx mouse, an animal model of Duchenne's muscular dystrophy, which indicate that the intravenous injection of either normal haematopoietic stem cells or a novel population of muscle-derived stem cells into irradiated animals results in the reconstitution of the haematopoietic compartment of the transplanted recipients, the incorporation of donor-derived nuclei into muscle, and the partial restoration of dystrophin expression in the affected muscle. These results suggest that the transplantation of different stem cell populations, using the procedures of bone marrow transplantation, might provide an unanticipated avenue for treating muscular dystrophy as well as other diseases where the systemic delivery of therapeutic cells to sites throughout the body is critical. Our studies also suggest that the inherent developmental potential of stem cells isolated from diverse tissues or organs may be more similar than previously anticipated.

Identification of FLRT1, FLRT2, and FLRT3: a novel family of transmembrane leucine-rich repeat proteins.

FLRT1, FLRT2, and FLRT3 comprise a novel gene family isolated in a screen for extracellular matrix proteins expressed in muscle. The three genes encode putative type I transmembrane proteins, each containing 10 leucine-rich repeats flanked by N-terminal and C-terminal cysteine-rich regions, a fibronectin/collagen-like domain, and an intracellular tail. FLRT1 is expressed in kidney and brain, FLRT2 is expressed in pancreas, skeletal muscle, brain, and heart, and FLRT3 is expressed in kidney, brain, pancreas, skeletal muscle, lung, liver, placenta, and heart. FLRT1 localized to 11q12-q13, FLRT2 to 14q24-q32, and FLRT3 to 20p11. When expressed in SF9 and COS-1 cells, FLRT1 and FLRT2 migrate as 90- and 85-kDa proteins, respectively, and both are glycosylated. Given the overall structure of the three proteins, a function in cell adhesion and/or receptor signaling is predicted.