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Purpose: We report two cases of toxocariasis peripheral granuloma in adults., Methods: Diagnostic difficulties linked to parasite serologies, particular to these two cases, are presented. Serology is often poorly contributive, but PCA and/or vitreous study with the ELISA reaction to Toxocara canis homologous antigens in the endocular fluids are the most reliable means of reaching a diagnosis, as evidence in our two observations. In the same way, the presence of eosinophils and of IgE in the aqueous humor and or vitreous is of great importance for orienting the diagnosis., Results: The treatment consisted in systemic steroids and granuloma cryotherapy associated with vitrectomy and for one case indentation due to a traction. Later, retinal membrane peel was performed for the same patient. No treatment with antihelminthic drugs was proposed. The functional and anatomic results were good in both cases (8/10-P2 and 6/10-P2)., Conclusion: Toxocara canis infection is based on clinical aspects. The ELISA technique is useful for biological diagnosis.

Purpose: Vision prognostic study depending on the germs and the therapic performed in bacterial endophthalmitis., Methods: In a retrospective study over a period of 3 years (1991-1993), 32 cases of post surgery bacterian endophthalmitis were detected: 30 cases after cataract surgery (29 cases after extra capsular surgery and one case after intra capsular), one case after trabeculectomy and one case after keratoplasty., Results: A risk factor was evidenced in 15.6% of the cases. Endocular samples were done in 68.75% of the cases. The positive rate was 36.4% showing a Staphylococcus in 5 cases out of 8 (62,5%). In 37.5% of the cases an intraocular antibiotic injection was associated to the anterior chamber punction. 40% of the cases contaminated with Staphylococcus regained a visual acuity of more than 3/10. For the two cases where a Streptococcus was isolated an evisceration was necessary. Our results show that a higher visual acuity was obtained when a posterior vitrectomy was performed. When the posterior vitrectomy was associated with a corticoid therapy, the visual prognostic was better. Thus, 71% of these cases regained a visual acuity of more than 3/10., Conclusion: Our results show that performing a posterior vitrectomy associated to a general corticotherapy within 48 hours from the bacterian endophthalmitis diagnosis would allow best vision improvement.

In many human colorectal cancers, the DCC gene encoding for a homologue of the neural cell adhesion molecule (N-CAM) is found to be deleted. Previous work suggested that gap junctional intercellular communication (GJIC) might play an important role in carcinogenesis and could be regulated by the expression of cell adhesion molecules such as E-cadherin in some epithelial cell systems. In order to examine whether the deletion of the putative cell adhesion molecule DCC is related to the level of GJIC, which might, in turn, be important in human colorectal cancers, we compared levels of expression of the DCC gene with the GJIC capacity of a panel of human colorectal adenocarcinoma cell lines isolated from different stages of tumor progression. While the level of GJIC varied between the cell lines studied, we found no correlation between their communication capacity and DCC expression revealed by a reverse-transcriptase/polymerase chain reaction method. This lack of correlation suggests that DCC is not a crucial regulator of GJIC.