Publications (2)4.65 Total impact
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Article: MR-guided percutaneous ethanol ablation of hepatocellular carcinomas before liver transplantation.
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ABSTRACT: It was the objective of this study to evaluate MR-guided, percutaneous ethanol injection of hepatocellular carcinoma in ten patients scheduled for liver transplantation. Using a 0.2 T open MR scanner (Magnetom Open, Siemens Medical Systems, Erlangen, Germany) and percutaneous instillation of ethanol, 12 liver tumors (median tumor volume, 6.3; range, 0.6-43.2 ccm) were treated. Coagulation necrosis, morbidity, and post-transplant histology were assessed. No major complications were observed. A mean of 16.4+/-11.4 ml ethanol was injected for each tumor. The median volume of the ablation necrosis was 12.3 (range, 0.3-48.3) ccm. Three tumors were retreated and complete radiological necrosis before liver transplantation was found in eight of 12 tumors (67%). One patient developed multifocal disease and was excluded from transplantation; thus nine of ten patients underwent liver transplantation within 3.9+/-3.1 months. In the explants, satellite nodules (n = 2), new liver tumors (n = 2) and a complete necrosis were found in five of 12 treated tumors (42%). During follow-up (median 41.3; range, 0.4-86.1 months), three patients died, but no tumor-seeding or post-transplantation recurrence occurred. MR-guided ethanol injection is feasible, and may delay tumor progression. However, the local recurrence rate is high, and the spatial resolution of a low-field MR scanner limits the detection of small tumors.Minimally Invasive Therapy & Allied Technologies 02/2007; 16(4):230-40. · 0.94 Impact Factor -
Article: C2C12 skeletal muscle cells adopt cardiac-like sodium current properties in a cardiac cell environment.
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ABSTRACT: Intracardiac transplantation of undifferentiated skeletal muscle cells (myoblasts) has emerged as a promising therapy for myocardial infarct repair and is already undergoing clinical trials. The fact that cells originating from skeletal muscle have different electrophysiological properties than cardiomyocytes, however, may considerably limit the success of this therapy and, in addition, cause side effects. Indeed, a major problem observed after myoblast transplantation is the occurrence of ventricular arrhythmias. The most often transient nature of these arrhythmias may suggest that, once transplanted into cardiac tissue, skeletal muscle cells adopt more cardiac-like electrophysiological properties. To test whether a cardiac cell environment can indeed modify electrophysiological parameters of skeletal muscle cells, we treated mouse C(2)C(12) myocytes with medium preconditioned by primary cardiocytes and compared their functional sodium current properties with those of control cells. We found this treatment to significantly alter the activation and inactivation properties of sodium currents from "skeletal muscle" to more "cardiac"-like ones. Sodium currents of cardiac-conditioned cells showed a reduced sensitivity to block by tetrodotoxin. These findings and reverse transcription PCR experiments suggest that an upregulation of the expression of the cardiac sodium channel isoform Na(v)1.5 versus the skeletal muscle isoform Na(v)1.4 is responsible for the observed changes in sodium current function. We conclude that cardiomyocytes alter sodium channel isoform expression of skeletal muscle cells via a paracrine mechanism. Thereby, skeletal muscle cells with more cardiac-like sodium current properties are generated.AJP Heart and Circulatory Physiology 02/2007; 292(1):H439-50. · 3.71 Impact Factor
