Suprasellar Clear Cell Meningioma in an Infant : Case report

Clear cell meningiomas are an uncommon subtype of meningioma rarely seen in infancy. We report a case of clear cell meningioma in an 8-month-old male infant. He presented at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Lagos, Nigeria, in 2015 with persistent vomiting, poor feeding and failure to thrive over a four month period. Generalised hypertonia and hyperreflexia were noted on examination. Computed tomography of the brain revealed a huge largely isodense suprasellar mass with a hypodense core. The tumour, which measured 6 x 5 x 4 cm, enhanced non-uniformly with contrast injection and extended to occlude the third ventricle. The patient underwent a bifrontal craniotomy with subtotal tumour excision. Six hours postoperatively, he went into cardiac arrest and could not be resuscitated. A histological diagnosis of clear cell meningioma was made as the tumour cells were immunoreactive to epithelial membrane antigen, S100 protein and vimentin. This case of clear cell meningioma was unusual due to its early occurrence and supratentorial location

Synoptic Versus Narrative Reporting of Prostate Biopsies at a Tertiary Healthcare Institution : Challenges, successes and expectations

Objectives: Cancer pathology reports are expected to contain all information required for patient management and disease surveillance. Moreover, reports for patients with prostate cancer have become increasingly complex with the addition of more pathological details. This study aimed to compare narrative and synoptic prostate cancer reports for core needle biopsies received at a tertiary hospital in Nigeria in order to determine which form was most complete according to international standards. Methods: This study was conducted from January 2010 to December 2015 at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Lagos, Nigeria. All malignant prostate cancer histopathology reports received during this period were analysed for the presence of important clinicopathological parameters, including the numbers of cores taken and those involved by the tumour, percentage of tumour involvement, Gleason score and the presence of high-grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasms (HGPINs) and perineural and lymphovascular invasion. Results: A total of 83 reports were reviewed, of which 27 were in narrative and 56 in synoptic format. The documentation of clinicopathological characteristics in narrative reports was significantly incomplete compared to synoptic reports in recording the number of cores (33.3% versus 96.4%), number of cores involved by the tumour (11.1% versus 94.6%), percentage of cores involved by the tumour (3.7% versus 100.0%) and the presence of HGPINs (7.4% versus 100.0%) and perineural (59.3% versus 98.2%) and lymphovascular (48.1% versus 100.0%) invasion (P <0.001 each). Conclusion:Synoptic reports of malignant prostate cancer biopsies received at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital were found to contain more complete information than narrative reports

Survey of dentin sialophosphoprotein and its cognate matrix metalloproteinase‐20 in human cancers

Abstract Background Matrix metalloproteinases‐20 (MMP20) expression is widely regarded as tooth specific, with expression limited to dental hard tissues. Recently, we reported MMP20 expression and interaction with dentin sialophosphoprotein (DSPP), a member of the Small Integrin Binding Ligand N‐linked Glycoproteins (SIBLINGs), in human oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) and dysplastic oral premalignant lesions (OPLs), suggesting a role for MMP20‐DSPP interaction in oral carcinogenesis. Methods This study aimed to survey the expression of MMP20 and its cognate DSPP partner in the breast, colon, prostate, thyroid, and cervical neoplasms. Using commercially available tissue microarrays (TMAs) and cell lines, we performed immunohistochemistry, immunofluorescence, proximity ligation assay, and western blot experiments to determine the expressions of MMP20 and DSPP in the breast, colon, prostate, thyroid, cervical neoplasms, and their normal counterparts. Results Significantly high expression levels of MMP20 and DSPP were observed in the malignant breast, colon, prostate, thyroid, and cervical neoplasms compared with their benign and normal counterparts. Furthermore, MMP20 levels increased with advanced stages of colon and thyroid cancers. DSPP expression increased significantly with tumor stage in all cancers examined. Conclusions The co‐localization and potential MMP20‐DSPP interaction previously reported in oral cancers are present in other cancers. These results suggest MMP20‐DSPP pairing as a potential marker of disease activity in some epithelial cancers with diagnostic and prognostic implications

Overexpression of p53 in Nigerian breast cancers and its relationship with tumour grade and oestrogen /progesterone expressions

Background: Mutation of the tumour suppressor gene, p53, is implicated in most cancers. This gene has also been associated with high tumour grade in breast cancers. African women are known to generally have high grade tumours. This study sought to determine the expression of p53 protein as well as the relationship with oestrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) proteins.Methodology: Formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue samples of diagnosed invasive breast cancer were obtained from the Department of Anatomic and Molecular Pathology, Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba, Lagos, Nigeria between 2002 and 2005. The clinical details of the patients were obtained from the histological request forms. Immunohistochemical studies were carried out in the Department of Histopathology, Royal Cornwall Hospital, Truro, United Kingdom with the automated Vision Biosystems Bond-Max Machines. The statistical analysis was done with SPSS version 12.Results: Overexpression of p53 is seen in (86/116) 73.1% in Nigerian breast cancers and 89.6% of these cancers were of higher grade. The study also showed that (27/35)77.1% of ER positive patients also showed p53 overexpression (p=0.592). We also found that (64/93) 68.8% of PR negative patients overexpressed p53 while (21/23) 91.3% of PR positive cases overexpressed p53 (p=0.036).Conclusion: Most Nigerian breast cancer cases were of high grade and showed p53 overexpression. We found no significant relationship between p53 overexpression and ER status but, there was a significant relationship between PR status and p53 overexpression. Further studies are advocated to determine the prognostic value of p53 in Nigerian breast cancer cases.Keywords: High grade, immunohistochemistry, low grade, tumour suppressor gene, well differentiate