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Sudden death due to unknown cardiac disease in children is an unusual occurrence. An apparently healthy 12-year-old boy without any physical restrictions collapsed suddenly and died despite cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The main autopsy finding was extensive scarring of the myocardium, especially the interventricular septum. This extensive scarring was exceptional for the young age. Histologically, replacement-type fibrosis with patchy lymphomonocytic infiltrate and infiltration by macrophages were observed. The case was diagnosed as chronic myocarditis, which may have progressed to dilated cardiomyopathy with inflammation or inflammatory cardiomyopathy.

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BACKGROUND: HER-2 amplification is an important prognostic biomarker and treatment determinant in breast carcinoma. AIMS: To correlate immunocytochemical (ICC) expression of HER-2 and gene amplification determined by chromogenic in situ hybridisation (CISH) using liquid based cytology (LBC) with immunohistochemistry (IHC) and CISH using histological samples of the same breast carcinomas. METHODS: Frozen sections and cytobrushings of 103 breast carcinomas were analysed. Four techniques were performed on each tumour: two on LBC samples (ICC, and CISH, both graded as positive, indeterminate, or negative) and two on histological samples (IHC and CISH). Two cell lines (MCF-7, negative; BT 474, positive) were used as controls for cytological analysis. A complementary fluorescence in situ hybridisation technique was carried out in histological samples with low amplification (4-10 dots/nucleus). RESULTS: Interobserver agreement for the four techniques calculated by the kappa coefficient indicated a substantial agreement. Nine cases failed in cytology because of poor cellularity. Among 94 cases, 19 were amplified; 73, 12, and 9 tumours were scored 0 or 1+, 2+, and 3+, respectively by IHC and 75, 13, and 6, respectively, by ICC. CISH found no amplification in 72 tumours. Correlations between the IHC and CISH results in the histological and cytological samples were always significant. CONCLUSIONS: Her-2 status could be determined in LBC samples and correlated well with reference histological methods using in situ hybridisation. ICC was less reliable because of the presence of the cytoplasmic membrane. However, these results should be confirmed by a large multicentre study.

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A number of patients in clinical practice would be candidates for hepatitis A vaccine administered subcutaneously (SC), including patients with inherited and acquired coagulopathies. To assess the safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity of VAQTA (Hepatitis A Vaccine, Inactivated, Merck and Co. Inc., West Point, PA) was administered SC to healthy adults. A total of 114 healthy adults received two doses of vaccine SC 24 weeks apart. No serious vaccine-related adverse experiences were reported. Four weeks after dose 1, the seropositivity rate (SPR) was 77.9% (CI, 69.1, 85.1%). The geometric mean titer (GMT) was 21.0 mIU/ml. Twenty-four weeks after dose 1 (just prior to dose 2) and 28 weeks after dose 1 (4 weeks following dose 2), the SPRs were 95.3% [corrected] and 100%, respectively; the GMTs were 153.2 and 1563.9 mIU/mL, respectively [corrected]. Although the kinetics of the immune response were slower when VAQTA was administered SC compared to intramuscular injection, SPRs and GMTs increased over time, indicating that the vaccine administered SC demonstrated immunogenicity.

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The efficacy and safety of cefprozil at two dose levels were evaluated in 110 patients with acute uncomplicated bacterial sinusitis in an uncontrolled, noncomparative, Phase II trial. Ninety patients received 250 mg of cefprozil (low-dose group) and 20 patients received 500 mg of cefprozil (high-dose group) every 12 hours for ten days. Evaluable patients had symptoms consistent with acute sinusitis, pathogens isolated at pretreatment susceptible to cefprozil, and a radiograph positive for sinusitis within 48 hours before treatment. A satisfactory clinical response was achieved in 34 of 39 evaluable patients (87%) in the low-dose group and in all 16 evaluable patients (100%) in the high-dose group. Pathogens were eradicated in 35 of 39 patients (90%) in the low-dose group and in 15 of 16 patients (94%) in the high-dose group. A total of 140 of 155 pathogens (90%) isolated pretreatment were susceptible to cefprozil. Six patients (7%) in the low-dose group and one patient (5%) in the high-dose group reported at least one adverse clinical event.

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Mucosal biopsy specimens from the ileal reservoirs of 92 patients who had undergone restorative proctocolectomy (12 with familial adenomatous polyposis, 78 with ulcerative colitis, and two with functional bowel disease) were studied. Chronic inflammation was found in almost all, as was villous atrophy of varying severity. Other changes included pyloric metaplasia and mucosal prolapse. Acute inflammatory changes and ulceration were less common but, when present, corresponded to the clinical condition of "pouchitis". A grading system was devised to score acute and chronic inflammatory changes. There was a significant increase in acute inflammatory scores in ulcerative colitis compared with those in familial adenomatous polyposis, and pouchitis was present only in patients who had had ulcerative colitis; the morphological features of pouchitis are similar to those seen in the colorectal mucosa in ulcerative colitis. Histochemical studies of mucin in the reservoirs of mucosa showed that there may have been a change from small intestinal mucin to colonic mucin.

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