ABSTRACT
The results of therapy given to 74 children with advanced disease, abdominal non-Hodgkin's lymphoma were retrospectively evaluated with respect to the major prognostic factors related to disease outcome. The first 36 patients admitted in the study were treated with a modified LSA2-L2 protocol, and the remaining patients received the same regimen with the addition of intermediate-dose methotrexate (MTX) intravenously during the induction phase (LSA2-L2-MTX). The last ten patients admitted were given a leucovorin rescue along with the administration of MTX. The relative efficacy of the LSA2-L2-MTX over the baseline LSA2-L2 regimen was analyzed by multivariate statistical methods taking into consideration several candidate coprognostic factors. The risk of treatment failure was substantially reduced (55%) with the use of the LSA2-L2-MTX regimen. Rescue with leucovorin did not contribute a further significant gain in treatment efficacy, although fewer toxicity-related problems were observed as compared to the no-rescue period. Five prognostic factors emerged as significantly explanatory of the risk of treatment failure in addition to protocol type: lymphocyte count, disease stage, surgical debulking, sex, and nutritional status. Based on these variables, a logistic regression equation could be derived to identify groups that were at risk for treatment failure.
Subject(s)
Abdominal Neoplasms/drug therapy , Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols/therapeutic use , Adolescent , Blood Cell Count , Carmustine/administration & dosage , Child , Child, Preschool , Cyclophosphamide/administration & dosage , Daunorubicin/administration & dosage , Drug Administration Schedule , Female , Humans , Lymphoma, Non-Hodgkin/drug therapy , Male , Methotrexate/administration & dosage , Nutritional Status , Prednisone/administration & dosage , Prognosis , Time Factors , Vincristine/administration & dosageABSTRACT
The immunoperoxidase technique using a polyclonal T. cruzi rabbit antiserum was compared with the routine hematoxylin-eosin staining procedure in the study of two cases of congenital Chagas disease. Comparatively, the immunoperoxidase technique gave better results than that using hematoxylin-eosin in identification of T. cruzi. The immunoperoxidase technique detected T. cruzi nests in unsuspected sites like lungs and testes, in which the hematoxylin-eosin stain failed to demonstrate their presence. In the two cases studied there was no evidence of positive immunoperoxidase reaction which could suggest the presence of cross-antigens between T. cruzi and host tissues, in the heart, gastrointestinal tract or other organs. These negative results are discussed.
