[Computer tomography in the diagnosis of neuromuscular diseases in children]. / Prínos výpocetní tomografie pro diagnostiku nervosvalových onemocnení u detí.

Recently in the literature occasional reports were published on the use of computed tomography (CT) in the diagnosis of neuromuscular diseases. The authors compared in a group of 23 children aged 3 to 15 years the results of clinical, laboratory, electromyographic, bioptic and CT findings on muscles. Only in four children the result of CT did not correlate with the clinical finding because of the incipient stage of the disease with structural changes which were yet only slightly expressed. Consistent with data in the literature it was possible from the CT to differentiate primary myopathies from neurogenic ones. The objective of the work was to prove the assets of the new method in the diagnosis of neuromuscular diseases, in particular in young children who do not cooperate during routine EMG examinations. There CT is an important guide for selective EMG and in particular for aimed bioptic studies which still hold priority in the specification of the disease. In already diagnosed and treated patients it is possible to investigate by means of CT the course of the disease by a non-invasive approach.

[The importance of the gammagraphic examination of the skeleton in the diagnostic and therapeutic strategy in carcinoma of the prostate]. / Význam gamagrafického vysetrení skeletu v diagnostice a lécebné strategii karcinomu prostaty.

One hundred and sixty patients with the diagnosis of prostate cancer have been treated at the Research Institute of Clinical and Experimental Oncology in Brno over the last 10 years. The present paper has been devoted to the diagnostics of skeleton by scintigraphy as compared with X-ray examination of bones. Scintiscanning of skeleton was performed on a gamma-graph Picker 500 i, 99mTc pyrophosphate was used and scintiscanning was performed in the usual examination regimen. The highest importance of this examination resides in the fact that the demonstration of bone metastases results, in most cases, in changing therapeutic procedure and thus significantly influences the course of the disease and the patient's fate. In the group of patients the authors detected metastases in the skeleton in 40% during the first examination of skeleton, sometime even after introducing the therapy. The results confirm the necessity of a complex skeleton examination before the onset of therapy in each patient with this kind of diagnosis.

Cytologic grading in relation to the clinical stage of the breast cancer.

Cytologic grading which may be performed at the same time as diagnostic cytology seems to be of a value in the pathobiology of the breast cancer. Other methods, such as mammography, termography, xenography, histological grading and some biological markers help to establish biological behavior of the tumor and appropriate treatment approach. In spite of the progress in diagnosis and therapy many problems remain to be clarified. In agreement with VORHERR a progress may be expected only from the development of novel approaches such as diagnosis before systematic spread has occurred or by the availability of efficient chemotherapy to kill all disseminated cancer cells.

Study of radiation dose fractionation in some tumor types.

In the presented work we have tested another fractionation schemes than simple fractionation in some so-called radioresistant tumors, i. e. in breast cancer and malignant melanoma. We have found the advantage of the irradiation with divided series (split irradiation) namely in malignant skin melanoma where we gained therapeutic results with 58% 5-year survival. Periodical irradiation especially with higher fractions once a week had encouraging success in advanced stages of the breast cancer where a single fraction of 8 Gy/tumor up to total dose of 40 Gy/tumor was determined as optimal. With the use of higher fractions more pronounced late postirradiation changes are to be expected. Fraction schemes were compared using NSD and TDF equations.