Here, we present the case of a 51-year-old man with limited-stage small cell lung cancer (LS-SCLC) who received concurrent chemoradiotherapy and photodynamic therapy (PDT). The patient was diagnosed as having LS-SCLC with an endobronchial mass in the left main bronchus. Following concurrent chemoradiotherapy, a mass remaining in the left lingular division was treated with PDT. Clinical and hist...

BACKGROUND Bedside diagnosis of patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) continues to be important, especially when echocardiography is not readily available. OBJECTIVE The aim of our study was to evaluate whether measurement of left main bronchus displacement portrayed on a chest X-ray as a widened carina angle (CA) may support the presumptive diagnosis of PDA. METHODS Displacement of the left bronc...

Background, methods and results We report herein the cases of two patients with bronchial carcinomas in the left main bronchus who were successfully treated by left sleeve pneumonectomy performed through a sternotomy incision for the first time in Bulgaria. Adequate oxygenation during tracheobronchial anastomoses was achieved by cardiopulmonary bypass in both patients. Tracheobronchial anastomo...

Video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) is an approach to resection of bronchogenic cysts (BC) which is effective and viable. There may be complications as a result of pericystic adhesions to neighboring structures during dissection. This report describes an unusual case of an operative complication, the rupture of the main left bronchus. The initial VATS approach was converted into a right...

Introduction. We herein report our experience with new fully covered self-expanding metallic stents in the setting of inoperable recurrent benign tracheobronchial stenosis. Methods. Between May 2010 and July 2014, 21 Micro-Tech® FC-SEMS (Nanjing Co., Republic of Korea) were placed in our hospital in 16 patients for inoperable, recurrent (after dilatation), and symptomatic benign airway stenosis...

INTRODUCTION Extracutaneous glomus tumors occurring in the bronchus is very rare. Complete resection is basic procedure for treatment of glomus tumor. We present a glomus tumor of the left main bronchus that was successfully treated with rigid bronchoscopy followed by sleeve resection of the left main bronchus. PRESENTATION OF CASE A 56-year-old man underwent two term resections to glomus tum...

BACKGROUND Scarring airway stenosis is commonly seen in China as compared to other developed countries, due to the high prevalence of tuberculosis. Nowadays, interventional bronchoscopy treatment has been widely used to treat this disease in China. This study demonstrated the characteristics of scarring airway stenosis in Chinese adults and retrospectively evaluated the efficacy of intervention...

The most prevalent strain of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Madrid, Spain (strain 5) was recovered from 45 cases between 1997 and 2004 and showed a highly homogeneous genetic composition. This strain was not exclusive to Spain, and its spoligotyping signature (ST20) was found in entries from different countries in the SITVIT1 database. Patients infected with strain 5 were more frequently positiv...

IL-12 plays a central role in both the induction and magnitude of a primary Th1 response. A critical question in designing vaccines for diseases requiring Th1 immunity such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Leishmania major is the requirements to sustain memory/effector Th1 cells in vivo. This report examines the role of IL-12 and antigen in sustaining Th1 responses sufficient for protective im...

This paper describes a neuro-control fuzzy critic design procedure based on reinforcement learning. An important component of the proposed intelligent control configuration is the fuzzy credit assignment unit which acts as a critic, and through fuzzy implications provides adjustment mechanisms to the main controller. The main controller is the neuro-control unit consisting of a full interconnec...