PET is useful for initial imaging of head and neck cancers. SUV does not appear to be useful for predicting outcome following treatment with RT. One-month post-RT scans were inaccurate for predicting the presence of cancer. Four-month post-RT scans were a better predictor for the presence of cancer.

Fasciola hepatica is a pathogenic trematode parasite of ruminants with a global distribution. Here, we briefly review the current epidemiology of bovine fasciolosis in Europe and discuss the progress made over the last decade in the diagnosis, impact on production and prediction of F. hepatica in cattle. Advances in diagnosis have led to significantly improved coprological and serological methods to detect presence of infection. Diagnostic test results have been correlated with intensity of infection and associated production losses, unravelling the impact on carcass weight and milk yield in modern cattle production systems. The economic impact of fasciolosis may, however, go beyond the direct impacts on production as evidence shows that F. hepatica can modulate the immune response to some co-infections. Control of bovine fasciolosis remains hampered by the limitations of the currently available flukicidal drugs: few drugs are available to treat dairy cows, many have low efficacies against juvenile stages of F. hepatica and there is evidence for the development of drug resistance. This makes research into the prediction of risk periods, and thus the optimum application of available drugs more pertinent. In this field, the recent research focus has been on understanding spatial risk and delivering region-specific spatial distribution maps. Further advances in epidemiological and economic research on bovine fasciolosis are expected to deliver farm-specific economic assessments of disease impact, to leverage non-chemotherapeutic management options and to enhance a more targeted use of anthelmintics.

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We have genetically replaced the diphtheria toxin receptor binding domain with a synthetic gene encoding interleukin-2 (IL-2) and a translational stop signal. The diphtheria toxin-related T-cell growth factor fusion gene encodes a 70 586-d polypeptide, pro-IL-2-toxin. The mature form of IL-2-toxin has a deduced mol. wt of 68,086 and is shown to be exported to the periplasmic compartment of Escherichia coli (pABI508), and contain immunologic determinants intrinsic to both its diphtheria toxin and IL-2 components. IL-2-toxin has been purified from periplasmic extracts of recombinant strains of E. coli (pABI508) by immunoaffinity chromatography using immobilized anti-IL-2. The purified chimeric toxin is shown to selectively inhibit protein synthesis in IL-2 receptor bearing targeted cells, whereas cell lines which do not express the IL-2 receptor are resistant to IL-2-toxin action.