Renal vein thrombosis due to metastatic germ cell tumor, report of a case with a very rare clinical scenario

Abstract Background Renal metastasis is a rare manifestation of germ cell tumors. Extension of malignant lesions into the renal vein can complicate the scenario. Case This report presents a 35‐year‐old man with primary stage IS NSGCT. Fourteen months after radical orchiectomy he presented with metastasis in the lung, kidney, and para‐aortic lymph nodes. He received multiple lines of salvage treatments including chemotherapy and surgery. Intraoperative exploration during radical nephrectomy and retroperitoneal lymphadenectomy revealed intra‐renal vein involvement with a prominent teratomatous component. Conclusion Defining the exact extent of malignant lesions, especially endovascular lesions, is very important to clarify how advanced the malignant lesions are. The surgeons must be aware of the risk factors that predict vascular involvement, and therefore, providing intraoperative access to vascular surgery procedures when needed

Is Tc99m-MIBI scintigraphy a predictor of response to pre-operative neoadjuvant chemotherapy in Osteosarcoma?

Objectives: Multidrug resistance (MDR), which may be due to the over expression of P-glycoprotein (Pgp) and/or MRP, is a major problem in neoadjuvant chemotherapy of osteosarcoma. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of Tc-99m MIBI scan for predicting the response to pre-operative chemotherapy. Materials and Methods: Twenty-five patients (12 males and 13 females, aged between 8 and 52y) with osteosarcoma were studied. Before the chemotherapy, planar 99mTc-MIBI anterior and posterior images were obtained 10-min [tumor-to-background ratio: (T1/B1)10min] and 3-hr after tracer injection. After completion of chemotherapy, again 99mTc-MIBI scan was performed at 10-min after tracer injection. In addition to calculation of decay corrected tumor to background (T/B) ratios ,  using the 10-min and 3-hr images of the pre-chemotherapy scintigraphy , percent wash-out rate (WR%) of 99mTc-MIBI was calculated. Using the 10-min images of the pre- and post-chemotherapy scans, the percent reduction in uptake at the tumor site after treatment (Red%) was also calculated. Then after surgical resection, tumor response was assessed by percentage of necrosis. Results: All patients showed significant 99mTc-MIBI uptake in early images. Only 9 patients showed good response to chemotherapy (necrosis≥90%) while 16 patients were considered as non-responder (necrosi

Loss of heterozygosity and microsatellite instability as predictive markers among Iranian esophageal cancer patients

Objective(s): Variation in microsatellite sequences that are dispersed in the genome has been linked to a deficiency in cellular mismatch repair system and defects in several genes of this system are involved in carcinogenesis. Our aim in this study was to illustrate microsatellite DNA alteration in esophageal cancer. Materials and Methods: DNA was extracted from formalin fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) tissues from surgical and matched margin-normal samples. Microsatellite instability (MSI) and loss of heterozygosity (LOH) were studied in 50 cases of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) by amplifying six microsatellite markers: D13S260 (13q12.3), D13S267 (13q12.3), D9S171 (9p21), D2S123 (2p), D5S2501 (5q21) and TP53 (17p13.1) analyzed on 6% denaturing polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Results: Statistical analysis indicated a near significant reverse correlation between grade and LOH (P= 0.068, correlation coefficient= -0.272). Specifically, increased LOH in tumor DNA has a significant correlation with increased differentiation from poorly differentiated to well differentiated tumors (P= 0.002 and P= 0.016 respectively). In addition, higher number of chromosomal loci with LOH showed a reverse correlation with lymph node metastasis (P= 0.026, correlation coefficient= -0.485). Furthermore, there was a positive correlation between addiction and MSI (P= 0.026, correlation coefficient= 0.465). Conclusion: Microsatellite DNA alterations may be a prognostic tool for detection and the evolution of prognosis in patients with SCC of esophagus. It can be concluded that regional lymph node metastasis would be less likely with increased heterozygote loci and addiction with any of opium, cigarette, water pipe or alcohol can be a susceptibility factor(s) for MSI