Rajesh Panth’s scientific contributions

Cerebral cavernous Malformation (CCM) is a rare neurovascular malformation accounting 0.5% to 4% of all intracranial vascular malformations. People harboring CCM may be symptomatic or may present with seizure, hemorrhage or progressive neurological deficit. Asymptomatic CCM needs no treatment. The symptomatic CCM may or may not require intervention. The best treatment for symptomatic CCM is microsurgical excision. Over a period of five years we have been managing I2 patients with CCM, and out of them 6 patients who were symptomatic required microsurgical excision. Here, we discuss these 6 surgically managed patients and appropriate literature related to CCMs would be reviewed.

Prostate cancer metastasis to the ureter is extremely rare because only 45 such cases have been reported worldwide in the last century. It accounts for 30% of ureteral metastasis. Neuroendocrine differentiation is approximately 1% of the entire primary prostate adenocarcinoma pathology. Metastatic prostate cancer may pose as upper tract urothelial carcinoma. Prostate may look normal on clinic-radiological examination in prostate cancer. Majority of such cases are managed with nephroureterectomy. Herein, we report a case of 62-year gentleman, who presented with refractory left flank pain with repeated imaging suggestive of neoplastic left ureteric stricture and normal prostate on clinic-radiological examinations. The case was later found with the diagnosis of metastatic prostate adenocarcinoma with neuroendocrine differentiation after left sided nephroureterectomy done for a provisional diagnosis of Upper Tract Urothelial Carcinoma (UTUC).

Cysts occupying the third ventricle are rare lesions and may appear as an unusual cause of hydrocephalic crisis. A 40-year old woman with headache and one episode of fainting attack was diagnosed with a cystic lesion in the third ventricle after brain MRI study. She was operated with the pre-operative diagnosis of a colloid cyst. A yellowish, thick and mucoid cyst was observed intra-operatively. The total removal of the cyst was done along with the cyst wall. On histopathological evaluation, the cyst wall was lined by ciliated cuboidal to pseudostratified columnar epithelium resting on an eosinophilic basement membrane. The ultrastructural study showed the characteristic 9+2 pattern of cilia. Immunohistochemistry showed positive staining for epithelial membrane antigen (EMA), cytokeratin (CK), and negative staining for Glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP). Histopathological and ultrastructural findings confirm the diagnosis of a colloid cyst of third ventricles favoring the endodermal origin of the cyst.