Inflammatory breast cancer

Inflammatory breast cancer (IMK) is characterized by breast skin involvement and it is the most aggressive form of breast cancers. IMK constitutes 1-6% of all breast cancers. It appears at early ages than noninflammatory breast cancer. Erythema, "peau d'orange'', rapid progression, poor prognosis, dermal lymphatic infiltration by cancer cells are the clinicopathological findings of the tumor. In the management of IMK, multimodel approach becomes very important. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is the cornerstone of the treatment because of the systemic features of the disease. However the response rates increase by anthracycline-based chemotherapy regimens, the average survival is still around 2.9 years. The standard regimen in patients with Her2/neu positive is trastuzumab but can develop resistance over time to it. Preliminary results of the studies with panitumomab and lapatinib are positive. In this review, we have determined the general approach to IMK because of the lack of standard treatment and rarity of the disease

Mammaglobin and maspin transcripts in blood may reflect disease progression and the effect of therapy in breast cancer

Detection of residual tumor cells in the circulation can provide prognostic as well as therapeutic information and help in identifying patients at high risk for developing metastases. Maspin and mammaglobin are two molecules that are specifically associated with breast cancer. We looked for mammaglobin and maspin transcripts in the peripheral blood of patients with breast cancer and evaluated their utility as a marker of the response to therapy. Maspin and mammaglobin transcripts were analyzed in 85 breast-cancer patients by nested RT-PCR, prior to and after treatment. Before therapy, 10 patients were found positive for mammaglobin and 20 patients were positive for maspin. In four patients, both transcripts were detected. Immediately following treatment, only one patient was still positive for mammaglobin while maspin transcripts persisted in three patients. Disease progression was observed mainly in patients in whom maspin transcripts were not detectable. Molecular detection of circulating tumor cells during therapy based on analysis for mammaglobin and maspin transcripts is an easy and practical method that can be applied to follow-up patients. We suggest that detection of mammaglobin mRNA is useful to determine the effect of therapy while maspin transcripts may indicate more aggressive disease

Extended latissimus dorsi myocutaneous flap for breast reconstruction: analysis of 30 patients

OBJECTIVE

Investigation of the molecular changes during chemotherapy in non-Hodgkin's lymphoma

In the present study the changes in the detection rate of bcl-2 and IgH gene rearrangements in relation to chemotherapy and therapeutic response in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma have been investigated. Immunoglobulin gene rearrangements were detected in almost all patients during all stages of treatment

Bcl-2 gene rearrangements and apoptosis rates in patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma during chemotherapy

Objectives: Overexpression of the bcl-2 gene as a result of the t(14,18) translocation leads to neoplastic transformation by suppressing apoptosis. However, apoptotic cell death in response to chemotherapy has not been investigated. This study was planned with the aim to investigate the association between bcl-2 gene rearrangements and apoptotic changes during chemotherapy in patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma