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During the last decade, there has been growing recognition of a peculiar type of chronic pancreatitis known as autoimmune pancreatitis (AIP). AIP consists of two distinct clinical and histopathological forms of pancreatitis: type 1 and type 2 [1–5]. Type 1 AIP refers to the subtype that has the histological pattern known as lymphoplasmacytic sclerosing pancreatitis (LPSP) or granulocytic epithelial lesion (GEL)-negative AIP, whereas type 2 AIP refers to the subtype that has the histological pattern called idiopathic duct-centric pancreatitis (IDCP) or GEL-positive AIP [4]. Since pancreatic histology often may not be available, the terms type 1 and type 2 AIP have been introduced to describe the clinical profiles associated with LPSP and IDCP. The increasing number of reported AIP cases had resulted in the identification of several clinical, serologic, and histopathologic features that distinguish the 2 subtypes of the disease [6].

Since the introduction of the CT scan for pre-operative diagnosis and postoperative follow-up in intracranial tumors, completely removed benign meningiomas have been shown to develop recurrences more often than expected (1, 2). This study was performed to establish if specific histological patterns or tumor locations favor the appearance of tumor recurrences. In addition, special attention was paid to the correlation between the biological behaviour of meningiomas and the patient’s age.

Significant progress in diagnosis of intracranial tumors has been made during the past decade. In the late 1970s, computed tomography (CT) became an established technique in neuroimaging, which had proven its diagnostic potential especially in regard to intracranial tumors [5]. In the early 1980s, magnetic resonance (MR) imaging was introduced into clinical practice [1]. Although MR is widely used nowadays and advances have been tremendous, a lot of difficulties still remain in interpreting MR data [1]. The correlation between histological diagnoses and tissue dignity on the one hand and ϱ, T1, and T2 parameters on the other hand is one area in which knowledge is limited [3, 4]: first results seem to be less promising than was hoped for at the beginning of the MR period [3, 4]. For these reasons, we reviewed some of our meningioma cases that were studied with MR and compared the very variable histological pattern of these tumors with their heterogeneous MR characteristics.

The grey matter of the spinal cord consists of two lateral, wing-like expansions in cyclostomes, whereas in chondrichthyans it is differentiated into distinct dorsal and ventral horns, an arrangement similar to that found in all other vertebrates. The spinal grey matter in cartilaginous fishes contains cells of a wide size range, although in adults the larger elements are mainly confined to the ventral horns. Myelinated fibres are absent from the cyclostomes but the white matter of the chondrichthyan cord comprises numerous well-myelinated fibres.