Surgical management of a rare giant ovarian serous cystadenoma with distinctive clinical manifestations.

Giant ovarian cysts are categorized with sizes >10 cm. After reaching huge diameters, these rare tumors cause clinical symptoms such as nausea, vomiting or abdominal pain. We present a 29-year-old woman with a giant unique cystadenoma represented with unusual clinical features like low back pain and progressive constipation. Specific imaging methods demonstrated an adnexal lesion in the form of an enormous ovarian cyst; afterward, an open laparotomy was recommended to access the abdominal cavity. The critical role of timely diagnosis and accurate workups for giant ovarian cysts in increasing patients' life expectancy and quality of life is discussed.

The stage of head and neck diagnosed malignancies in COVID-19 outbreak versus before outbreak: A retrospective study.

BACKGROUND: Global COVID-19 pandemic has affected cancer care systems. Recent studies show that the number of cases diagnosed with cancer has drastically decreased compared to the same period before the pandemic. Therefore, we are confronted with delayed diagnosis of critical cancers. AIM: The aim of this study is to investigate whether the stage of known cancers has been affected by delayed diagnosis and to compare the stages of head and neck cancers diagnosed during and before the pandemic. METHODS: The present study was conducted on 132 patients with malignant head and neck tumors referred to the otolaryngology, head and neck cancer department of Taleghani Hospital from 2019 to 2021. The stage of cancers was compared between two groups of patients with head and neck malignancy referred to the Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Department of the Taleghani Hospital before and during the COVID-19 outbreak. RESULTS: The results from tumor (T), nodes (N), and metastases (M) (TNM) staging (p-value = .015) and T score (value = 0.045) showed that the stage of tumor diagnosed in patients during the COVID-19 pandemic significantly increased compared to patients diagnosed with a tumor before pandemic. CONCLUSION: In the present study, it was observed that the early symptoms of malignant head and neck tumors have been neglected by patients during COVID-19 pandemic and resulted in delayed diagnosis. This result may be explained by the fear of COVID-19 infection in patients, which discouraged them from visiting a doctor at healthcare centers.

Cu(I) stabilizing crosslinked polyethyleneimine.

Polyethyleneimine (PEI) is known for its metal-coordinating properties and in its crosslinked form has applications in different areas ranging from drug delivery to waste water treatment and recovery of trace metals. With the aim to regulate the coordination environment of Cu(I) and Cu(II) ions in marine coatings, we have prepared a triazole cross-linking agent with 'soft' coordination that can crosslink PEI via indirect reductive amination. We have shown that this triazole crosslinker not only increases the Cu(II) absorption capacity of the crosslinked PEI in comparison to the traditionally used glutaraldehyde-crosslinked PEI (PEI-GA), but also allows the crosslinked polymer network to stabilize the Cu(I) oxidation state more effectively. The Cu(II) uptake and Cu(I) stabilization of the polymer have been determined by elemental analysis and UV-vis spectroscopy. It was found that the triazole-crosslinked polymer (PEI-TA) could coordinate up to 12 wt% of Cu(II) before and 6 wt% Cu(II) after imine reduction.