Microscopically, the tumor turned out to be a capillary hemangioma in a background of steatohepatitis. We searched the literature, and only six similar cases were found. We made a brief review of this rare disease entity and described its clinicopathological features. Copyright (C) 2011, Elsevier Taiwan LLC. All rights reserved.”
“Association between autoimmune liver diseases and scleroderma has been described. The purpose of this study was to study the prevalence of antimithocondrial antibody (AMA), antismooth muscle antibodies (SMA), and liver-kidney-microsomal

(LKM-1) autoantibody in a cohort of 63 scleroderma patients and 100 healthy controls. The autoantibodies AMA, SMA, and LKM were determined by indirect immunofluorescence. click here Patients’ charts were reviewed for demographic data, scleroderma form, and clinical and antinuclear antibody profile, aiming MI-503 inhibitor a comparison between patients with and without liver autoantibodies. Nine patients (14.3%) were positive for at least one of the liver autoantibodies; only one patient had both AMA and SMA positive. Antibody SMA was positive in 6.4% (4/63) patients; AMA was present in 9.52% (6/63) of them; none were positive to LKM-1. In the control group just one patient (1%) was SMA positive; the other autoantibodies were negative. There is an increased prevalence

of liver autoantibodies in patients with scleroderma than in control population. These patients should be carefully followed for liver dysfunction.”
“The present work deals with the preparation buy VX-770 of carbon fibers from polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibers. The chemical composition and physical properties of the starting fibers were determined. The PAN fibers were stabilized in air at the temperatures (230, 270, and 300 degrees C) with the heating time from

40 to 420 min. The effects of both final stabilization temperature and heating rate on the chemical and physical properties of the prepared stabilized fibers were studied. The chosen stabilized fibers samples were carbonized in argon atmosphere at the temperatures (1000, 1200, and 1400 degrees C) with different heating rates 5, 10, 15, and 20 degrees C min(-1). The effects of both carbonizing temperature and heating rate on the weight loss, density, elemental composition, and IR absorption spectra of carbonized fibers were also studied. The fiber sample, which was carbonized at 1400 degrees C, contains 97.55% carbon, 1.75% nitrogen, and 1.4% hydrogen. This means that carbonizing the stabilized fibers at 1400 degrees C in argon atmosphere is suitable to get oxygen-free carbon fibers. Therefore, the used carbonizing temperature in the present work (1400 degrees C) is suitable to produce moderate heat-treated carbon fibers with the heating rate of 15 degrees C min(-1). The modulus of the prepared carbon fibers was compared to that of industrially produced fibers using the results of X-ray analysis. (C) 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.