Metabolic disturbances after a single dose of 30 mg pamidronate for leukaemia-associated hypercalcaemia in a 11-year-old boy.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to D De Coster.
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More than 90% of intra-oral malignancies are squamous cell carcinomas. Oral cancer is far more frequent in developing countries than in developed ones. This has probably to do with the differences in the use of tobacco and alcohol and with factors such as oral hygiene, nutrition and general resistance. Through an increased interest for epidemiological studies certain factors are suspected as carcinogenic. They can grossly be divided into chemical, physical and biological. Even though it is often hard to prove the real relation of cause to effect, one can no longer deny the detrimental role of tobacco, of many alcoholic drinks, of poor oral hygiene, of nutritional deficiencies, of short wave irradiation, and possibly of certain viruses. These factors must further be investigated because the overall prognosis of oral cancer is not very good. Determinant in survival are the volume of tumor present (surface and depth), its growth pattern, its localisation, eventual lymph node involvement and general hematogenic metastases, ... The overall five-year survival seems to range between 10% for T4N3 and 95% for T1N0 cases. Early detection and efficient prevention must therefore be encouraged.
Plunging ranulas are rare. The diagnosis can be made by CT-scan or NMR and can be clinically confirmed by aspiration of saliva. It is now generally accepted that the best treatment exists of resection of the sublingual gland by intra-oral approach and drainage of the cyst content to the oral cavity. In an experimental set-up we treated a patient with ethoxysclerol with excellent result. However, after 6 months, swelling reappeared, followed by the classic therapy, as described above.
Cryotherapy to 32 individual branches of the trigeminal nerve in 27 patients, who were followed up for 3 years, resulted in pain relief out-lasting return of sensation. After one year 65% of patients were pain free. In the treatment of trigeminal neuralgia, cryotherapy is an easy method with similar results but lower complication rate in comparison with other peripheral methods.