Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
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Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. · Jun 2004
Ultrasound as an alternative to aspiration for determining the nature of pleural effusion, especially in older people.
Sonography was performed by two expert radiologists separately after selecting 80 patients (45 men and 35 women) whose pleural fluids had been aspirated and examined by the lab. The radiologists were given no clinical information concerning the patients, and the result compared with lab results. The radiologists evaluated three criteria in determining the nature of the pleural effusion: septation, echogenicity, and thickening of pleura by more than 3 mm. ⋯ The lab results showed that there were 29 patients with transudates and 51 with exudates, and in ultrasound results there were 34 with transudates and 46 with exudates. A transudate is always without echogenicity, while exudates can be with or without echogenicity. It was therefore concluded that sonography is useful in determining the nature of pleural effusion.
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Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. · Jun 2004
Detection and characterization of circulating microsatellite-DNA in blood of patients with breast cancer.
Increased levels of circulating DNA have been reported in the blood of cancer patients but not healthy individuals. Tumor-specific genomic aberrations, such as loss of heterozygosity (LOH) and microsatellite instability (MSI), can be detected in this free extracellular DNA. Identification of these genetic aberrations may play an important role in cancer diagnosis and prediction of disease progression. ⋯ In conclusion, genomic aberrations on chromosomes 10, 16, and 17 are frequent in the circulating DNA of breast cancer patients. However, circulating tumor DNA does not reflect the presence of tumor cells in blood or the level of tumor-associated protein markers such as CA 15-3. Thus, screening for circulating tumor DNA may provide additional diagnostic information.