European Journal of Breast Health (Eur J Breast Health) is an international, scientific, open access periodical published by independent, unbiased, and double-blinded peer-review principles. It is the official publication of the Turkish Federation of Breast Diseases Societies, and Senologic International Society is the official supporter of the journal.

Objective: Invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) of the breast makes up 5 to 15 percent of all invasive breast cancers. It has distinctive clinical and histopathological features when compared to invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC). This study intends to describe factors influencing sentinel lymph node (SLN) positivity in patients with "pure" ILC. Materials and Methods:Data of 105 patients, who were treated at a tertiary oncology center, with lobular carcinoma of the breast that were subjected to SLN biopsy was probed retrospectively. Patients were categorized as ≤60 and >60 years of age, positive or negative for estrogen receptor and progesterone, tumor grade I, II and III, Ki67≤15% and >30%, lymphovascular invasion presence and the presence of multicentricity and multifocality.Results: Mean age at the time of diagnosis was 52 (38-81). Mean tumor size was 2.7 cm (0.7-13cm). Univariate analyses revealed a significant relationship between tumor size (≤2 cm vs >2cm) and metastasis in the SLN. This relation kept its significance in multivariate analyses. (p=0.013). Conclusion:With so many different characteristics from IDC, ILC is mostly a uniform tumor. In this study, tumor size was the only independent clinical parameter that was found related to SLN metastases.

Contrary to the expected, gunshot casualties were found to be more likely to suffer from extremity injuries than blast casualties did, and it should be noted that blast trauma casualties tend to have multiple compartment injuries that should not be missed. Ocular ruptures are also common, especially with blast injuries, warranting equipping the personnel with protective goggles.

BACKGROUND:In this experimental rat model, we aimed to investigate boric acid's possible protective effect against the formation of post-operative abdominal adhesions through its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. METHODS:Forty healthy male albino rats were randomly and evenly allocated to vehicle, hyaluronic acid-based (HA-b) material, boric acid 50 (BA50), boric acid 100 (BA100), and sham groups. Intra-abdominal adhesions were induced by mechanical cecal abrasion. Macroscopic and pathologic assessments of the adhesions were done and tissue tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1) levels were measured. RESULTS:Total abdominal adhesion scores were 129.7, 91.07, 53.77, 90.07, and 140.5 for the vehicle, HA-b, BA50, BA100, and sham groups, respectively, with the highest score indicating more severe adhesions. A significant difference in fibrosis scores was noted between both BA50 and BA100, and the sham group (p=0.018). When objective parameters were analyzed, TNF-α levels were significantly lower in the BA50 group than the sham, BA100, and vehicle groups (p=0.01, 0.019, and 0.03, respectively). TGF-β1 levels were also significantly lower in BA50 group than the sham, BA100, and the vehicle groups (p=0.013, 0.016, and 0.05, respectively). No difference was observed for any parameter between BA50 group and HA-b group. CONCLUSION:Topical boric acid at a dose of 50 mg/kg is found safe and as effective as the hyaluronic acid-based agent in preventing postoperative abdominal adhesions in our rat model.

The number of studies on the diabetes health literacy of patients with diabetic foot is very limited. The aim of this study was to determine the diabetes health literacy levels of patients with diabetic foot. The data in this cross-sectional, descriptive study were collected using a sociodemographic data collection form and the Health Literacy Scale (HLS). Data were analyzed using SPSS for Windows Version 25.0 software. The HLS total score was 35.96 ± 10.70, and the Functional, Interactive and Critical subscale scores were 11.90 ± 5.04, 13.10 ± 4.80, and 10.96 ± 4.19, respectively. The diabetic health literacy level of the patients was seen to be affected by general education level, the status of having received education about diabetes, and family history of diabetes ( P < .05). The diabetes health literacy level of patients with diabetic foot can be said to be low. This demonstrates the necessity of determining and increasing the health literacy levels of patients diagnosed with diabetes before the development of diabetic foot.

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