Co-administration of VCE restored antioxidant status, lowered by the presence of breast-cancer and chemotherapy. DNA damage was also reduced by VCE. The results suggest that VCE should be useful in protecting against chemotherapy-related side-effects and a randomized control trial to evaluate the effectiveness of VCE in breast-cancer patients using clinical outcomes would be appropriate.

The study was undertaken to evaluate the reliability of ultrasound guided fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) in distinguishing benign and malignant lesions in the retroperitoneum and correlate the diagnosis by cytology of retroperitoneal masses with the results obtained by histology. The clinicopathological study was carried out in 50 patients presenting with retroperitoneal masses on ultrasonography. Fine needle aspiration under ultrasound guidance of these masses was performed by 20-22G needle after thorough clinical examination. Malignant lesion constituted the maximum number of cases-31 (62%) followed by benign and inflammatory lesion-16 cases (32%). Eleven cases out of 23 renal masses were Wilm's tumour, 4 were renal cell carcinoma and there was a single case of angiomyolipoma of kidney. Out of 20 cases with retroperitoneal lymphadenopathy 12 cases (60%) were inflammatory, mainly tuberculosis and 8 (40%) had malignancy. Out of the 7 cases of miscellaneous retroperitoneal masses, 3 were fibrohistiocytic tumour and 2 were myxoid liposarcoma. Ultrasound guided FNAB is an inexpensive, rapid, safe and accurate procedure for the diagnosis of retroperitoneal masses.

In the present study, oxidative stress and lymphocytic DNA damage in both pre-op and post-op benign prostrate hyperplasia (BPH) patients with age >50 years was evaluated and compared with normal healthy subjects (controls- without any evidence of disease) of the same sex and age group. From December 2007 to November 2009, oxidative stress in 45 BPH patients were evaluated both before (pre-op patients) and after 7 days of surgery (post-op patients) in terms of measurements of plasma levels of (1) various anti-oxidative enzymes, (2) non-enzymatic antioxidants and (3) malondialdehyde which is a product of lipid peroxidation. The lymphocyte DNA damage was also evaluated by single cell alkaline gel electrophoresis in terms of tail length migration in these patients. These values were compared with their respective control subjects of similar sex and age group. The activities of antioxidant enzymes and the levels of antioxidant, reduced glutathione were found significantly decreased (p < 0.05) in serum samples of pre-operative group of BPH patients as compared to the controls. These altered parameters increased significantly (p < 0.05) and returned to their near normal control values, but not up to baseline values, in post operative patients i.e. after the cancer load was decreased by surgery. Lymphocytic DNA damage was found to be significantly increased in pre-op group as compared to controls and was reduced after surgery in post-op group. The present study therefore, shows significantly increased levels of oxidative stress and DNA damage in BPH patients which were reduced after removal of tumour load. Thus oxidative damage plays an important role in prostate tumourogenesis and timely management of oxidative stress can be of importance in preventing the occurrence of BPH.

The study was undertaken to evaluate the role of ultrasound guided fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) of gastrointestinal masses in providing higher diagnostic yield and assess its reliability in distinguishing between benign and malignant gastrointestinal lesions. 86 patients with gastrointestinal masses after thorough clinical examination underwent ultrasonographic examination. Those found to have a mass were subjected to FNAC. Smears prepared were fixed in 95% ethyl alcohol and stained with Haematoxylin and Eosin and Papanicolaou stains. Forty (46.5%) were males and 46 (53.5%) females with majority of patients in the third decade in both sexes. Malignant lesions constituted the maximum number of 42 (48.8%) cases, followed by 36 (41.8%) cases of benign and inflammatory lesions. Adenocarcinoma was the most common malignancy accounting for 36 (85.7%) cases; out of which 16 (44.4%) cases were adenocarcinoma stomach and 20 (55.6%) cases were adenocarcinoma intestine. Among the inflammatory and benign lesions, 30 (83.3%) cases were tuberculous followed by 4 (11.1%) cases appendicitis, The mean age of malignancy was 39.2 years and the average age of tuberculous patients in our study was 25.5 years. On cytohistological correlation, 30 were found to be true positive for malignancy, 5 true negative and 1 false negative. There were no false positive cases. We obtained a sensitivity of 93.8%, specificity of 100% and diagnostic accuracy of 94.4% in our study. Ultrasound guided FNAC is an effective and useful method which eliminates the need for surgical biopsy and provides sufficient information for the initiation of therapy.