Diagnostic Imaging Modalities for Skeletal Metastasis in Soft Tissue Sarcoma

Soft tissue sarcomas (STS) are usually highly malignant. Bone metastasis is less common in STS but it significantly affects patients` quality of life and also is indicator of poor prognosis. Different types of imaging modalities are available for diagnosis and follow-up of STS. Bone scintigraphy is a sensitive and cost effective method for screening bone metastases however it`s poor specificity must be covered by other imaging methods like computed tomography. More sophisticated methods are available including whole body magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET). Equipment limitations and high costs are the main problems with ofthese methods

A case report of Synovial Sarcoma of the Esophagus

 Majority of esophageal malignancies are Adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma. Other histologies such as melanoma, sarcoma, and lymphoma may exist. Among the sarcomas, synovial sarcomas are a rare entity of malignant mesenchymal tumors and less than ten cases of primary synovial sarcoma of the esophagus have been reported worldwide. We report a 28 year old man with primary synovial sarcoma of esophagus that underwent surgery and chemotherapy followed by radiotherapy. He was disease - free for 4 months. He died soon afterwards due to lung metastasis. This case survived about 18 months

Machine learning application in cancer research: Mini Review

Nowadays, due to the significant growth of medical data production, utilization of interdisciplinary science, such as data mining, is also increasing. In order to discover the knowledge, form an enormous quantity of medical data, data mining would be helpful tools. One of the common data mining techniques is machine learning. This approach is the ability of learning without being explicitly programmed by computers through sets of algorithms. In the past few years, many researches have been carried out the machine learning algorithms utilization in cancer research. In this mini-review, besides defining the concepts of machine learning, the application of machine learning on cancer data also has been reviewed. The repeated studies are divided into four categories, including Identification of high-risk people, Prediction of cancer staging, Prediction of cancer clinical outcomes and Medical image analysis. Studies show that the use of machine learning in medical fields is increasing and there is a promising progress in this area

Ga-68 PSMA-11 PET in progressive prostate cancer

In the current report we presented intense uptake in Ga-68 prostate specific membrane antigen (PSMA) positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) in early and late monitoring of 74 years old male patient with prostate carcinoma diagnoses

Palliative Radiotherapy Efficacy on Overall Survival in Advance Lung Cancer Palliative Radiotherapy in Lung Cancer

Background: Throughout the world, lung cancer accounts for 13% of the total cases of cancer and 18% of the cancer related deaths based on 2008 estimates. Lung cancer is the first most common cancer and the most common cause of cancer-related death in both men and women.Aims of study: To assess the overall survival of Iraqi lung cancer patients that treated with palliative radiotherapy.Patients and Methods: The retrospective study was conducted to investigate survival after palliative radiotherapy for patients with lung cancer that treated in Baghdad center for Radiotherapy treatment from 1st of Jan 2016 to end of Dec 2017 for 40 patients whom suffered from dyspnea, pain, hemoptysis, and Superior Vena cava obstruction .The Radiation Dose was 20 Gy/5 fractions were prescribe (85 % of cases). For each patient, individual data and information on primary and advanced disease were collected from health file records.Results: The Overall survival of lung cancer rate was 32.5%, with mean of 19.4 months  and median 14 months. The SCC 29 (72.5%) was the commonest histopathology of lung cancer in our study. The adenocarcinoma was recorded in 9 (22.5%) and other histopathological subtypes recorded in 2 (5%). Males were more than females obtained with lung cancer in this study as 33 (82.5%), 7(17.5%), respectively. M : F ratio was 4:1.Conclusions: Palliative RT should be an integral part of multimodal, interdisciplinary management of patients with incurable lung cancer

The importance of pediatric cancer registries in childhood cancer control

Cancers in children, as the major cause of pediatric deaths, account for one percent of all cancers. Cancer control program is intended to diminish occurrence, morbidity and mortality and to improve the life quality of people with cancer. A key element of any reasonable cancer control program is cancer registry. A registry which serves as the backbone for any treatment plan in childhood oncology. Given the importance of pediatric cancer, the present paper explores the importance of pediatric cancer registry in childhood cancer control

The Evaluation of S100A12 protein expression in patients with gastric cancer and its diagnostic significance

AbstractIntroduction: The S100 protein family plays an important role as biomarker in several types of tumors. One of the family members is the S100A12 protein, recently known as a new marker in tumorigenicity and gastric cancer research. Considering the diagnostic importance of S100A12 and the relatively high prevalence of gastric cancer in Iran, this study aimed at examining the expression of S100A12 in the tissues of such patients.Method: The expression of S100A12 in 79 Gastric Cancer patients was examined using immunohistochemistry in tumor tissue cells, and 50 non-tumor samples were selected for comparison with tumor tissues. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS v16 and chi-square test with a confidence interval of 95 percent.Results: The results showed that there was a significant difference between tumor tissues and non-tumor tissues with regard to the expression of S100A12 protein, with tumor cells showing significantly lower expression. Based on clinicopathologic results, S100A12 protein indicated a negative correlation with tumor dimensions, tumor invasion depth, metastasis stage of tumor, and no significant correlation with other clinicopathologic features, like age, sex and metastasis to lymph nodes.Conclusion: The results showed that the low expression of S100A12 as a new marker was associated with tumor formation and Gastric Cancer progression

68Ga-PSMA-11 PET-CT is superior to bone scintigraphy for detection bone metastasis in low and high grade of prostate cancer

Bone with distant metastasis and morbidity due to skeletal complications is a lesion that encouraged many authors to focus on the new radiotracers for better diagnosis regarding high sensitivity and specificity. However, 99mTc-Methylene diphosphonate (MDP) bone scintigraphy (BS) is the current standard imaging due to increase adsorption of the tracer at osteoblastic sites; it shows false-positives in degenerative changes and false-negatives in bone marrow metastasis. Recently, Prostate Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA) is the promising target in prostate cancer imaging due to the over-expression in cancer cells. 68Ga-PSMA-11, a small molecule with PSMA enzyme inhibition activity has to benefit in bone and lymph-node recurrences and staging. Moreover, as degenerative changes do not have PSMA uptake will have not positive in response to therapy, the bone scan has enough quality for degenerative changes. With this consideration, BS is unable to differentiate bone metastasis from degenerative changes. 68Ga-PSMA-11 could overcome this limitation from conventional imaging as well. Finally, we concluded that PSMA PET-CT would have better sensitivity and specificity due to the unique distinction for detecting metastases. Keywords: bone scan, 68Ga-PSMA PET, metastasi

Trefoil Factor Family in Pre-neoplastic Lesions and Gastric Cancer

Gastric cancer is the fourth most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Although the global incidence of gastric cancer has been decreased dramatically in recent decades, north and northwest of Iran have the highest incidence rate of gastric cancer. Whilst the surgical procedures for gastric cancer have been improved, there is no cure for that. The intestinal type of GC results from pre-neoplastic conditions including atrophic gastritis, intestinal metaplasia and dysplasia. Trefoil Factors Family proteins (TFFs) are small and stable molecules secreted by the mammalian gastrointestinal tract. TFFs constitute a family of three peptides (TFF1, TFF2and TFF3) that are widely expressed in a tissue specific manner in the gastrointestinal tract. Variable TFFs expression in gastric cancer and pre-neoplastic lesions has been found. TFF1 has a tumor suppressor activity and inhibits tumorogenesis in gastric cancer. Its expression decreases in gastritis, gastric atrophy, dysplasia, intestinal metaplasia and gastric cancer.TFF2 has a protective effect on gastrointestinal epithelium. As a prognostic factor, TFF2 expression decreases in gastric ulcer, chronic atrophic gastritis and gastric cancer. TFF3 is considered as an oncogenic factor in gastric tissues. Whilst the normal gastric tissues don’t express TFF3, it increases in intestinal metaplasia. Therefore, more studies are necessary to clarify the role of TFFs in GC and pre-neoplastic conditions. This review has focused on elucidating the important role of TFFs in gastric cancer and pre-neoplastic lesions