Abstract. Some clinical factors have been useful in predicting prognosis in high-grade gliomas, however, unexpected differences in survival time have generated attempts to search for more precise parameters. It is clear that tumour behaviour depends mostly on gene alterations.

No abstract

The contact of chronic hemodialysis patients' blood with components of extracorporeal circulation leads to mobilization of several systemic reactions. The purpose of this study was to determine the activity of transforming growth factor (TGF-beta1) and platelet derived growth factor (PDGF) in serum of patients on long-term hemodialysis program and to compare these results with ones obtained in healthy volunteers. Twenty-five patients on dialysis carried out on polysulfone membrane dialyzer, and 16 patients on dialysis with the used of cuprophan membrane dialyzer on long-term hemodialysis program participated in the study. TGF-beta1 level in serum of healthy volunteers (12.06 +/- 7.56 ng/mL) was lower than in serum of patients dialyzed on polysulfone membrane dialyzers (26.56 +/- 14.83 ng/mL). Differences in PDGF concentrations in serum of control group and hemodialyzed patients were not statistically significant. The strong correlation between TGF-beta1 and PDGF in serum of both studied groups of patients was demonstrated.

schedules to reduce the risk of AI. 4 Moreover, the adrenal function is often not evaluated after a gradual withdrawal, which may result in the risk of overlooking AI. Due to the fact that nearly 1% of people in the general population are treated with GCs on a long-term basis, 4 many patients could potentially have undiagnosed AI, which may lead to a life-threatening adrenal crisis. Clinicians also face diagnostic difficulties due to no definite recommendation on how to properly interpret the results of cortisol levels and INTRODUCTION Secondary adrenal insufficiency (AI) is characterized by suppression of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, the most common cause of which is long-term glucocorticoid (GC) therapy. 1,2 GC-induced AI has been known since the early 1950s 3 but it still remains a major diagnostic and therapeutic challenge. Recent studies suggested that the prevalence of AI in patients treated systematically with GCs varies from 14% to 100%. 3-10 To date, no guidelines have been proposed for GCs withdrawal