World Neurosurg
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Invasive pituitary adenomas often recurred after postoperative radiotherapy and are difficult to treat. Temozolomide is an alkylating cytostaticum and has been reported to reduce pituitary tumor size and hormone hypersecretion. However, this is far from enough. Pituitary adenomas have relatively high expression of vascular endothelial growth factor. Therefore an antiangiogenic agent has been used in a small number of aggressive or malignant pituitary tumors after recurrence. Apatinib (YN968D1) is a small-molecule antiangiogenic agent that selectively inhibits VEGFR-2 and also mildly inhibits c-Kit and c-Src tyrosine kinases, abundant in invasive pituitary adenomas. ⋯ We successfully treated this patient with recurrent invasive pituitary adenoma with temozolomide and apatinib for 31.5 months without recurrence. Angiogenesis is an active process in the cases of invasive pituitary adenomas that cannot be controlled by conventional therapy.
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Lumbar pyogenic spondylodiscitis (LPS) is still a tangled problem in its management, especially with increasing rates of cases who underwent different spinal procedures and in patients with chronic medical disease. One-stage posterior direct transforminal lumbar thorough debridement of septic lesion, decompression, and spondylodesis (TLTDDS) are the main goals in treatment of complicated LPS without additional morbidity of anterior surgery. This is a retrospective assessment of the clinical, laboratory, functional, and radiologic outcomes in 25 patients with LPS who underwent the TLTDDS procedure. ⋯ TLTDDS surgery is an effective procedure in the treatment of symptomatic LPS and allows abscess evacuation with adequate neural decompression, segmental kyphosis correction, and functional improvement.