Endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) has been accepted as a reliable tool in diagnosing and staging intra-abdominal tumors. In this study, we aimed to investigate the performance of EUS-FNA in the evaluation of liver masses and its impact on patient management and procedure-related complications retrospectively. Data of patients who underwent EUS-FNA biopsies due to liver masses between November 2017 and July 2018 were retrieved retrospectively. Biopsies were performed using 22-G needles. The demographics, EUS-FNA results, sensitivity and specificity of the procedure, negative predictive value, positive predictive value, and specimen sufficiency rates were assessed. A total of 25 patients (10 females) were included in the study. The mean age was 62.73±15.2 years. The mean size of the masses was 34.50±16.04 mm. The technical success rate was 88%. During the EUS-FNA procedure, each patient had only one pass with 94.45% of aspirate sufficiency rate and 86.3% of biopsy sufficiency rate. The diagnostic accuracy rate was 86.3%. There were no complications. For the evaluation of liver masses, EUS-FNA using a 22-G needle with even one pass had high aspiration and biopsy success rates accompanied with high diagnostic accuracy rates.

Early detection of colon adenomatous polyps is pivotal in reducing colon cancer risk. In this context, accurately distinguishing between adenomatous polyp subtypes, especially tubular and tubulovillous, from hyperplastic variants is crucial. This study introduces a cutting-edge computer-aided diagnosis system optimized for this task. Our system employs advanced Supervised Contrastive learning to ensure precise classification of colon histopathology images. Significantly, we have integrated the Big Transfer model, which has gained prominence for its exemplary adaptability to visual tasks in medical imaging. Our novel approach discerns between in-class and out-of-class images, thereby elevating its discriminatory power for polyp subtypes. We validated our system using two datasets: a specially curated one and the publicly accessible UniToPatho dataset. The results reveal that our model markedly surpasses traditional deep convolutional neural networks, registering classification accuracies of 87.1% and 70.3% for the custom and UniToPatho datasets, respectively. Such results emphasize the transformative potential of our model in polyp classification endeavors.

Background and Aim: PD-1 (programmed death-1) is an immune checkpoint receptor that modulates T-cell activity in peripheral tissues via interaction with its ligands, PD-L1 (programmed death-ligand 1) and PD-L2 (programmed death-ligand 2). Tumor cells upregulate PD-L1 or PD-L2 to dampen this T lymphocyte attack. Our goal was to demostrate the PD-1 and PD-L2 expresion rate of various hematologic malignancies, and to evaluate whether PD-1 and PD-L2 expresion have impact on prognosis. Materials and Methods: For this purpose, pre-treatment bone marrow biopsy specimens of 83 patients [42 multiple myeloma (MM), 21 acute leukemias, and 20 chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)] have been stained with monoclonal antibody immunstains of PD-1 and PD-L2. Results: As a result, the overall expression rate of PD-1 was 26.2%, 4.8%, and 60% in patients with MM, acute leukemias, and CLL, respectively. Whereas, PD-L2 expression rate was 61.9%, 14.3%, and 10% in patients with MM, acute leukemias, and CLL, respectively. Conclusion: Finally, we conclude that the role of PD-1 pathway can be demonstrated by immunohistochemistry (IHC). Since we have evaluated whether there is a correlation between (IHC) results and survival of patients with MM, acute leukemias, and CLL, we couldn’t demonstrate a meaningful evidence that these markers have an impact on prognosis. Key Words: PD-1, PD-L2, multiple myeloma, acute leukemias, chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of topical allantoin application on wound healing in a rat chronic tympanic membrane perforation (TMP) model. METHODS: A chronic TMP model was established with 25 healthy, female, 6-month-old, Sprague Dawley rats with chemical damage (trichloroacetic acid 50%). The rats were randomly assigned into 3 groups as follows: Group 1 (10 rats, 20 ears) was administered intratympanic (IT) 20 μL/day 0.57% allantoin solution 7 times, every other day; Group 2 (5 rats, 10 ears) received no substance; Group 3 (10 rats, 20 ears) received IT 20 μl/day distilled water 7 times, every other day. After tympanic membrane (TM) examination with an otoendoscope, histopathological examination of the TM was performed to evaluate neutrophil activity, chronicity, histiocytes, keratin accumulation, subepithelial edema, congestion, fibroblast proliferation, neovascularization, and tympanic membrane thickness. RESULTS: Two TM perforations, 1 in Group 1 and 1 in Group 3, were not healed whereas TM perforations in 48 ears demonstrated closure at the end of the study. According to the histopathological examination, neutrophil activity and fibroblast proliferation were significantly higher in Group 1. There was no significant difference between the groups in terms of other histopathological parameters. CONCLUSION: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study investigating the effect of allantoin in an experimental chronic TMP model. According to the histopathological findings, allantoin may have positive effects on the wound healing process of chronic TMP. Cite this article as: Ünsal N, Bayram A, Akay E, Yaşar M. The effect of Allantoin on chronic perforation of rat tympanic membrane. J Int Adv Otol. 2021;17(3):251-254.