Squamous cell carcinoma in a tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus)

CASE HISTORY: A mature male tuatara was presented with a history of recurrent cloacal prolapse.

CLINICAL AND PATHOLOGICAL FINDINGS: The prolapsed tissue included a 12 mm diameter mass, which histologically showed cords and nodules of neoplastic epithelial cells.

DIAGNOSIS: The mass was diagnosed as a squamous cell carcinoma with ulceration of the overlying stratified squamous epithelium and diffuse inflammation of the surrounding dermis.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE: This case presented a rare opportunity to investigate squamous cell carcinoma in a long-lived lower vertebrate species. Future recurrence or metastasis of the mass may add useful information to the current base of knowledge of the behaviour of malignant neoplasms in reptiles.     

Tracking the flow of information

By using words transmitted and words attended to as common denominators, novel indexes were constructed of growth trends in 17 major communications media from 1960 to 1977. There have been extraordinary rates of growth in the transmission of electronic communications, but much lower rates of growth in the material that people actually consume, representing the phenomenon often labeled information overload. Growth in print media has sharply decelerated, and a close relationship is found between the cheapness of a medium and its rate of growth.     

Pathologic findings and pathogenesis of racetrack injuries

Many lesions of the musculoskeletal system of racing horses are either acute traumatic lesions or are chronic biomechanically induced lesions that become suddenly unstable and provoke acute clinical signs. The latter lesions along with those of DJD are much more common and are of much greater overall economic importance to the racing industry than are the acute traumatic injuries. Chronic biomechanical lesions occur at predictable sites and are the result of an imbalance between repetitive microtrauma sustained in athletic performance and adaptive repair mechanisms of skeletal tissues. The distribution of these lesions in the limbs reflects the patterns of biomechanical forces placed on the skeleton during work at racing speeds and, therefore, reflects the type of racing activity for which the horse was bred. Lesions result when there is a failure of the stressed skeletal structures to adapt to the biomechanical forces placed upon them. Rest or a reduction in the level of training activity permit the healing of many asymptomatic and presumably some symptomatic lesions of the bony tissues. Articular cartilage, tendons, and ligaments have a lower capacity to resolve the damage and return to normal structure and function.     

Multipotential osteosarcoma with various mesenchymal differentiations in a young dog

Apparently synchronous, aggressive, mixed mesenchymal tumors in the right tibia, right femur, left femur, and rib cage produced multiple microscopic metastases in the lungs and macroscopic metastases in the liver, kidney, and spleen in a 1.5-year-old, neutered male, mixed-breed dog. No primary soft tissue tumor mass was present. Microscopically, the neoplasm exhibited osteosarcomatous, chondrosarcomatous, liposarcomatous, leiomyosarcomatous, fibrosarcomatous, angiosarcomatous, and leukocytic differentiation and was diagnosed as a multipotential osteosarcoma with various mesenchymal differentiation. Immunohistochemically, the neoplasm was cytoplasmically immunoreactive for vimentin, osteonectin, osteocalcin, CD 18, CD 31, desmin, and muscle-specific actin. Oil Red O staining was positive within liposarcomatous areas. Skeletal metastases from a primary bone tumor are exceedingly rare in human and veterinary medicine. However, the history, clinical signs, location, microscopic and immunohistochemical features were similar to those described in aggressive, poorly differentiated osteosarcomas of children. In addition, the wide range of mesenchymal tissue differentiation of this neoplasm was unusual, and to the authors' knowledge, an osteosarcoma with this degree of multiple differentiation has not been previously reported in the dog.     

Procedure for artificial cross pollination in clove (Syzygium aromaticum)

Summary A technique for artificial cross pollination in clove is described. This involves emasculating flowers two days before anthesis, and pollinating four days later. Following this procedure a seed set of approximately 25% can be expected.