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Objective. Endocan has been shown to be a marker for several cancers and may show degree of malignancy. The aim of this study is to assess tissue levels of endocan in common brain tumors, namely, meningiomas, low-grade gliomas (LGGs), and high-grade gliomas (HGGs). Patients and Methods. Endocan was assayed by commercially available enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits in a total of 50 brain tumors (20 meningiomas, 19 LGGs, and 20 HGGs) and 15 controls. The results were compared to control brain tissues. Results. Each tumor group showed significant higher levels of endocan compared to controls (p < 0.05). In addition, endocan levels showed steady increase from the least (meningiomas) to the most (HGGs) malignant tumors and positive correlation was noted between the degree of malignancy and endocan level (p = 0.0001). Conclusion. Endocan, a vital molecule for angiogenesis, is expressed in common brain tumors and results suggest that endocan could be a marker for malignancy.

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Forensic age estimation, a recent topic of research in forensic medicine, is of primary importance to criminal and civil law. Previous studies indicate that the observation of medial clavicular ossification allows for age discrimination along the completed 18th and 21st years of life. Experts recommend that the Schmeling and Kellinghaus methods be used together. In this study, we used these staging methods to retrospectively analyze 725 case studies (385 males, 340 females) of thin-slice computed tomography (CT) images, ranging from 0.6 to 1 mm in thickness, from individuals aged 10 to 35 years. Stage 1 was found at 18 years of age maximum for males, whereas it was found at 17 years of age for females. Stage 2a was found at 18 years of age maximum for both genders. Stage 3c was initially observed at 18 years for both genders. Stage 4 was initially found at 21 years for males and 20 years for females. Stage 5 was initially observed at 25 years for both genders. Of note, stage 3c was found close to 19 years of age for both genders (18.92 years for male, 18.99 years for female), and it may be employed to differentiate along the age majority cutoff. The data obtained from our study were consistent with previous studies. We believe that such a comprehensive database will greatly contribute to future studies focusing on medial clavicular ossification based on thin-slice CT. Moreover, we also recommend that if medial clavicular ossification based on CT is to be examined for forensic age estimation, both methods should be employed together.

The evaluation of the ossification of the medial clavicular epiphysis being part of an assigned expert approach according to standard plays an important role within civil and criminal proceedings in assessing whether a person has reached her/his 19th or 22nd year of age. Evaluation of the medial clavicular epiphysis with thin-section CT is one of the methods recommended by the Study Group on Forensic Age Diagnostics of the German Association of Forensic Medicine. In this retrospective study, we evaluated the thin-section CT (section thickness of 0.6 and 1 mm) images of 254 patients (146 male, 108 female) with an age range of 13-28 years according to the Kellinghaus substage system. The mean values of female patients were observed to be about 10 months lower for stage 2a than the mean values of the male patients, about 13 months lower for stage 2b, and about 18 months lower for stage 2c. The earliest appearance for stage 3c was at 19 years in both sexes. Our data from this study were consistent with both our previous studies and the data of other studies. We think that stage 3c is important in determining whether a person has reached the age of 18 or not and, therefore, that the Kellinghaus substage system is a requirement in the assessment of forensic age.