Screening of egocentric and unemotional characteristics in incarcerated and community children.

A two-dimensional instrument to screen egocentric and unemotional traits in children was tested in this study, and the associations with the aggressive and the antisocial symptoms of conduct disorder were determined. To this end the narcissistic-egocentric and callous-unemotional characteristics associated with psychopathy were, along with the symptoms of conduct disorder, rated by teachers in a general community sample of 1179 four-to-eighteen-year-old Dutch children, and by professional care takers in a sample of 145 twelve-to eighteen-year-old incarcerated adolescents. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the ratings of the psychopathic characteristics indeed clustered into a dimension with egocentric characteristics and a dimension with unemotional characteristics. Both dimensions were reliable and stable across age and gender groups. In both samples aggressive behavior was primarily linked to the interaction of egocentric and unemotional characteristics, while antisocial behavior was primarily linked to egocentric characteristics only. The incarcerated adolescents showed substantially more characteristics on both psychopathic dimensions than a comparable age and gender matched group with adolescents from the general community sample. The discrimination between normal and incarcerated adolescent youngsters and the linkage with aggressive behavior suggests the existence of a subtype of conduct disordered children displaying narcissism, deficient affect and disruptive social problem behavior.

I-123-IDAB: a new tracer for scintigraphic visualisation of malignant melanoma.

I-123-N-(2-Diethylaminoethyl) 4-lodobenzamide (I-123IDAB) has recently been introduced as a radiopharmaceutical agent in the management of patients with malignant melanoma. We tested the diagnostic potential of this substance in 5 patients suspected of having an ocular malignant melanoma. I-123-IDAB scintigraphy identified 4 patients with high tracer uptake in the pathologic eye. Three cases were confirmed histologic as a malignant melanoma, the fourth patient was submitted to radiotherapy. The amelanotic (histologically confirmed) irismelanoma of the fifth patient could not be detected. From these preliminary results we conclude that I-123-IDAB scintigraphy may be a valuable tool for establishing the diagnosis of malignant melanotic melanoma.

Transsclerally sulcus fixated anterior chamber lenses in eyes without posterior capsule support: three years follow up.

Three years ago we started to implant commercially available anterior chamber lenses with S-shaped haptics an multipoint support into the posterior chamber in cases of secundary lensimplantation after intracapsular cataract operation. The lenses were transsclerally fixed by two sutures through the ciliry sulcus. They exhibit more stability than the C-loop posterior chamber lens and induce some scar formation possibly enabling them to stay firm even after degradation of the suture.