A Rare Tumour of the Breast: Carcinosarcoma

Carcinosarcoma of the breast, also known as metaplastic carcinoma, is rare with very few cases reported in the literature. A 46-year old female patient presented with a mass in her left breast. Physical examination, ultrasonography and mammography findings were consistent with malignancy. The mass was totally removed. Histopathological examination revealed carcinosarcoma of the breast. Histologic grade of the tumour was III. Ki67 proliferation index was found 40% positive. Tumour cells were positive for p53 (70% positive), c-erb-B2 (5% positive), pancytokeratin and EMA in carcinomatous areas, and vimentin in sarcomatous areas. There was no metastasis in axillary lymph node and distant metastasis. The patient is receiving chemotherapy and is under follow-up in the 54th month. Along with a review of the literature, we present the information regarding the clinical and histological findings and treatment of the patient who was operated due to breast carcinosarcoma

Vasculitis and long standing ankylosing spondylitis in a patient with familial Mediterranean fever

Coexistence of familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) and other inflammatory disorders has been frequently reported, but no specific underlying factor has been identified. We report a patient with FMF who is presented with long-standing ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and cutaneous leukocytoklastic vasculitis (LV) of the lower limbs. It is the first report on combination of FMF with AS and LV. The Mediterranean Fever (MEFV) gene mutation of heterozygote (R202Q/R726A) and HLA-B27 are detected in this case, and are believed to form genetic susceptibility to LV

EVALUATION OF HISTOPATHOLOGIC PARAMETERS AND NEOANGIOGENESIS IN PROSTATE CARCINOMA

Introduction: Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among men in the world. Primary options for treatment include observation only, hormonal ablation, radiation therapy, and radical prostatectomy. Prostate carcinoma detection has been increased with the use of prostate specific antigen. Successful attempts were made to establish useful prognostic factors for the outcome of prostate carcinoma, like TNM stage, Gleason's grade and serum PSA level. However despite current clinical, serologic and radiologic evaluations of patients, as many as 30% of patients are found to have disease that has penetrated the capsule and/or seminal vesicles on final pathologic analysis after radical prostatectomy. Various new prognostic factors that have been suggested to provide additional prognostic information include proliferative activity, overexpression of the apoptosis-inhibiting oncogene Bcl-2, neoangiogenesis and inactivation of the P53 tumor suppressor gene. Angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels, has been suggested to provide important prognostic information in prostate cancer. The goal of this study was to evaluate of histopathologic parameters and neoangiogenesis in men undergoing radical prostatectomy. Materials and Methods: We analyzed between 1996 and 2002, 40 consecutive patients with prostate cancer who underwent lymphadenectomy and radical prostatectomy (RP). The patients who qualified for the study had a preoperative serum PSA level, age, preoperative histologic grade according to the Gleason histological scoring system and the other prognostic histopathologic parameters (surgical margin of resection, extraprostatic extent of cancer, lymph node metastases and seminal vesicle involvement) and microvascular density (MVD) in RP. Cases were categorized into groups of s-PSA < 4 ng/ml, 4.1-10, 10.1-20 and greater than 20. All prostate biopsies were reviewed and Gleason score, percent cores positive for carcinoma, and perineural invasion were recorded for each specimen. Positive surgical margins were those showing tumor in the shave bladder neck tissues, in distal urethral shave tissues, or in the inked edges of the remaining portions of the RP. Seminal vesicle invasion was defined as infiltration of the muscular coat of one or both seminal vesicle. Invasion of the periprostatic soft tissue was defined as extraprostatic extention. The hematoxylin-andeosin-stained slides (needle biopsy and radical prostatectomy) were examined, and the tumors were graded by assigning both a primary and secondary Gleason score. A single representative block from each prostate specimen was selected and 3 micron thick sections were used for the CD 34 immunostaining. Microvascularity density quantification was performed using CD 34 antigen immunohistochemistry as previously defined. All slides were evaluated for immunostaining in a blinded fashion without any clinicopathologic data. The immunoreactivity was evaluated at 400x magnification and 10 most vascular areas were assessed. Any positive cell or cell cluster, clearly separate from adjacent microvessels, tumor cells and other connective tissue elements, was considered a single, countable microvessel. Microvessel density was then recorded as the mean of 10 high power fields. We used the Pearson correlation test, chi-square test and Mann-Whitney U test for statistic analysis. Results: The mean age was 65.5 years (range: 57-73). Serum PSA ranged from 2 to 58 ng/ml. The mean MVD for CD 34 ranged from a minimum of 28 to a maximum of 180. We were able to demonstrate a high degree of correlation between microvascularity in radical prostatectomy and that in the corresponding involvement seminal vesicle and extraprostatic extention. MVD was not significantly associated with Gleason grade in RP specimens in this study. Conclusion: Angiogenesis is essential for tumor growth and metastasis and has been proposed as a marker for tumor aggressiveness in several cancers. Angiogenic factors can be secreted by tumor cells, inflammatory cells and stromal cells. Histological evaluation of MVD in prostatic adenocarcinomas may improve the prediction of involvement of seminal vesicle and surgical margins. Additional data defining the positive predictive value of MVD and its relationship to other preoperative and postoperative parameters can provide a useful addition to our staging procedures. Obviously larger series may provide information that can help predicting the effectiveness of therapy in a particular patient

Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma Arising in Warthin's Tumor: Case Study and Review of the Literature

WOS: 000329533600012PubMed ID: 24421853Warthin's tumor is the second most common type of salivary gland tumor. Microscopically, Warthin's tumor displays a proliferative epithelial component and lymphoid stroma. Carcinomas arising from the epithelial component are well known, but malignant transformations of the lymphoid stroma are rare. When they do occur, they are most commonly B-cell type non-Hodgkin lymphomas. A 60-year-old male patient underwent surgical resection of a parotid mass. After superficial parotidectomy, microscopic examination indicated that the tumor was of epithelial components with basaloid and oncocytic columns of cells neighboring lymphoid components. In addition to the lymphoid follicles with distinct germinal centers, there were large, bizarre and extremely atypical neoplastic cells seen in the lymphoid component. Large neoplastic cells were diffusely CD20 and CD30 positive. The patient was diagnosed with "Warthin's tumor and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma with expression of CD30." The histopathologic and clinical features are discussed along with a review of the literature

Sentinel lymph node biopsy in breast cancer: review on various methodological approaches

WOS: 000322748000005PubMed ID: 23748806Aims and background. Sentinel lymph node biopsy has been accepted as a standard procedure for early stage breast cancer. In this retrospective analysis, the results obtained with different methodological approaches using radiocolloid with or without blue dye were examined. Methods. A total of 158 sentinel lymph node biopsies were performed in 152 patients. Group A (85 patients) underwent lymphatic mapping using a combination of periareolar intradermal radiocolloid and subareolar blue dye injections. Group B (73 patients) underwent only periareolar intradermal radiocolloid injection. One large tin colloid and two small radiocolloids (nanocolloid of serum albumin -NC- and colloidal rhenium sulphide -CS-) were used. Results. Successful lymphatic mapping was attained in 157 of 158 procedures (99.4%). Radiocolloids localized sentinel lymph nodes in 99.4% and blue dye in 75.3% of the cases. The number of sentinel lymph nodes removed was greater in nanocolloid and colloidal rhenium sulphide groups (P <= 0.05). Among 60 metastatic sentinel lymph nodes, frozen section analysis using hematoxylin and eosin staining failed to detect 1 macro- and 10 micrometastasis. Radiocolloid uptake was higher in sentinel lymph nodes accumulating blue dye (1643 +/- 3216 counts/10 sec vs 526 +/- 1284 counts/10 sec, P <0.001). Higher count rates were obtained by using larger sized colloids (median and interquartile range: tin colloid, 2050 and 4548; nanocolloid, 835 and 1799; colloidal rhenium sulphide, 996 and 2079; P = 0.01). Only 2 extra-axillary sentinel lymph nodes were visualized using periareolar intradermal injection modality. Conclusions. Radiocolloids were more successful than blue dye in sentinel lymph node detection. More sentinel lymph nodes were harvested with small colloids, but different sized radiocolloids were similarly successful. Sentinel lymph nodes having higher radiocolloid uptake tended to accumulate blue dye more frequently. Sentinel lymph nodes manifested higher count rates when a larger colloid was used. Frozen section was very successful in detecting macrometastatic disease in sentinel lymph nodes, but the technique failed in most of the micrometastates