Redistribution of nutritive elements in a 'Gros Michel' banana plant.

A procedure is described and leaf, rhizome and root analyses are presented for a one-year-old vegetative plant of the banana cv. Gros Michel grown under glass in a sandy soil supplied with organic and inorganic fertilizers. Silicon was used as an index element on the presumption that it is not redistributed within a plant. The results indicated that N, S, P, K and Cu were mainly redistributed into young leaves from the old leaves, the rhizome functioning as a circulation pump. In contrast, only small amounts of Mg, Cl, Fe and Zn (and no Ca) were redistributed. Most redistribution of N and S was in the organic, rather than inorganic, form of each element. (Abstract retrieved from CAB Abstracts by CABI’s permission

Histopathological Features of Early Onset Indonesian Breast Cancer Pointing to Brca1/2 Germline Mutations

Background: Breast cancer under 40 years concerns a relatively small subgroup of cases that tend to display a more aggressive phenotype. Compatible with this, early age of onset has been known as one of clinical characteristic of hereditary breast cancers associated with germline BRCA1 or BRCA1 mutations. As early onset breast cancer is frequent in Indonesia, we investigated the histopathological and immunohistochemical characteristics of early onset (< 40 years) Indonesian breast cancer patients, as such features can be used to distinguish between BRCA and non-BRCA germline mutation carriers among these young women.Method: Thirty-five formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded tissue sections of young women (mean 36 years, range 22-40 years) who underwent surgical resection at the Department of Surgery of the Sardjito Hospital Yogyakarta were examined for pathological features, estrogen and progesterone receptor status, proliferation as determined by Ki67 labeling, EGFR and CK5/6 and the presence of HER-2/neu and p53 protein. Additionally, mutation analysis for BRCA1 and BRCA2 was performed in 30 young women. The control group consisted ofcarcinomas from women above 50 years (mean 59.02, range 50-80 years).Result: Carcinomas occurring in women aged below 40 years were more often advanced stage and higher proliferating (p=0.006). Among the early onset breast cancer patients, ductal type, grade 3, ER and HER-2/neu negativity, high Ki67 index and CK5/6 and EGFR positivity were typical for BRCA1 patients. Unfortunately, there were no typical phenotypical features for BRCA2 carriers. However, grade I and lobular cases were never BRCA1/2 germline mutated.Conclusion: Early onset Indonesian breast cancer shows increased proliferation compared to late onset patients. Within the early onset group, the strongest features pointing to a sporadic cancer seem to be grade I and lobular differentiation. Features increasing the chance of a germline BRCA1/2 mutation are CK5/6 and EGFR expression, p53 accumulation and high proliferation as measured by Ki67 labeling. This is potentially useful to optimize selection of early onset breast cancer patients for BRCA1/2 mutation testing

Histopathological Features of Early Onset Indonesian Breast Cancer Pointing to Brca1/2 Germline Mutations

Background: Breast cancer under 40 years concerns a relatively small subgroup of cases that tend to display a more aggressive phenotype. Compatible with this, early age of onset has been known as one of clinical characteristic of hereditary breast cancers associated with germline BRCA1 or BRCA1 mutations. As early onset breast cancer is frequent in Indonesia, we investigated the histopathological and immunohistochemical characteristics of early onset (< 40 years) Indonesian breast cancer patients, as such features can be used to distinguish between BRCA and non-BRCA germline mutation carriers among these young women.Method: Thirty-five formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded tissue sections of young women (mean 36 years, range 22-40 years) who underwent surgical resection at the Department of Surgery of the Sardjito Hospital Yogyakarta were examined for pathological features, estrogen and progesterone receptor status, proliferation as determined by Ki67 labeling, EGFR and CK5/6 and the presence of HER-2/neu and p53 protein. Additionally, mutation analysis for BRCA1 and BRCA2 was performed in 30 young women. The control group consisted ofcarcinomas from women above 50 years (mean 59.02, range 50-80 years).Result: Carcinomas occurring in women aged below 40 years were more often advanced stage and higher proliferating (p=0.006). Among the early onset breast cancer patients, ductal type, grade 3, ER and HER-2/neu negativity, high Ki67 index and CK5/6 and EGFR positivity were typical for BRCA1 patients. Unfortunately, there were no typical phenotypical features for BRCA2 carriers. However, grade I and lobular cases were never BRCA1/2 germline mutated.Conclusion: Early onset Indonesian breast cancer shows increased proliferation compared to late onset patients. Within the early onset group, the strongest features pointing to a sporadic cancer seem to be grade I and lobular differentiation. Features increasing the chance of a germline BRCA1/2 mutation are CK5/6 and EGFR expression, p53 accumulation and high proliferation as measured by Ki67 labeling. This is potentially useful to optimize selection of early onset breast cancer patients for BRCA1/2 mutation testing.Keywords: breast cancer, early onset, histopathology, immunohistochemistry, BRCA1, BRCA

Automatic nuclei segmentation in H&amp;E stained breast cancer histopathology images

The introduction of fast digital slide scanners that provide whole slide images has led to a revival of interest in image analysis applications in pathology. Segmentation of cells and nuclei is an important first step towards automatic analysis of digitized microscopy images. We therefore developed an automated nuclei segmentation method that works with hematoxylin and eosin (H&amp;E) stained breast cancer histopathology images, which represent regions of whole digital slides. The procedure can be divided into four main steps: 1) pre-processing with color unmixing and morphological operators, 2) marker-controlled watershed segmentation at multiple scales and with different markers, 3) post-processing for rejection of false regions and 4) merging of the results from multiple scales. The procedure was developed on a set of 21 breast cancer cases (subset A) and tested on a separate validation set of 18 cases (subset B). The evaluation was done in terms of both detection accuracy (sensitivity and positive predictive value) and segmentation accuracy (Dice coefficient). The mean estimated sensitivity for subset A was 0.875 (±0.092) and for subset B 0.853 (±0.077). The mean estimated positive predictive value was 0.904 (±0.075) and 0.886 (±0.069) for subsets A and B, respectively. For both subsets, the distribution of the Dice coefficients had a high peak around 0.9, with the vast majority of segmentations having values larger than 0.8. © 2013 Veta et al

HER-2/neu Testing and Therapy in Gastroesophageal Adenocarcinoma

Despite ongoing advances in the treatment of gastroesophageal cancer, prognosis remains poor. The best promise to improve this poor survival is provided by new targeted agents. Of these, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) is currently in the spotlight. In this review, we provide an overview of recent developments in HER2 testing and results of clinical trials targeting HER2 in gastroesophageal adenocarcinoma. Based on the encouraging ToGA trial findings it is now expected that routine HER2 testing will be included in the diagnostic work-up of patients with advanced gastric cancer. With regard to this testing, overexpression of the HER2 protein seems to possess the best predictive properties. However, HER2 immunohistochemistry (IHC) is subject to assay and interobserver variability, so standardization and internal and external proficiency testing is an absolute prerequisite, especially as the IHC scoring system in gastric cancer is different from that of breast cancer. Further study is needed to investigate the clinical meaning of the significant heterogeneity observed in both gene amplification and protein overexpression in gastroesophageal cancer. Highly effective therapies for gastroesophageal cancer can only be accomplished by a multi-targeted approach, considering crosstalk between pathways and continuing to optimize chemotherapy

Nuclear morphometric features in benign breast tissue and risk of subsequent breast cancer

Certain nuclear morphometric features measured in breast tumor tissue have been shown to predict the prognosis of breast cancer patients. However, the application of these features to predicting risk of breast cancer development has received little attention. We conducted a case-control study to evaluate nuclear morphometric features in benign breast tissue in association with subsequent breast cancer risk. The study was nested within a cohort of 4,888 women with a histopathologic diagnosis of benign breast disease (BBD) and involved 61 cases and 71 controls, amongst whom there were 53 matched case-control sets. Conditional logistic regression models were fitted to assess various measurements of nuclear size and nuclear shape factors in relation to subsequent breast cancer risk. In multivariate analysis, subsequent breast cancer risk was positively associated with a nuclear shape factor that takes the shortest nuclear axis and the longest nuclear axis into consideration simultaneously (highest quartile versus lowest 3 quartiles: odds ratio = 3.07, 95% confidence limits = 1.61, 5.84). In contrast, there was no alteration in subsequent breast cancer risk in association with nuclear size features and other shape factors. In conclusion, our study results suggest that the shape factor that takes both the shortest nuclear axis and the longest nuclear axis into consideration might be of value to predict subsequent development of breast cancer among women with BBD

The association of socioeconomic status on treatment strategy in patients with stage I and II breast cancer in the Netherlands

BACKGROUND: Previous studies have shown that socioeconomic status (SES) influences breast cancer therapy. However, these studies were performed in countries with unequal access to healthcare. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate whether SES also contributes to the likelihood of receiving a certain therapy in the Netherlands, a country with supposedly equal access to healthcare. MATERIALS AND METHODS: From the Netherlands Cancer Registry, 105,287 patients with newly diagnosed stage I or II breast cancer diagnosed between 2011 and 2018 were selected for analysis. SES was calculated from the average incomes of each postal code, which were divided into 10 deciles. Primary outcome was the effect of SES on the likelihood of undergoing surgery and secondary outcome was the effect of SES on the likelihood of the type of surgery. Both outcomes were corrected for patient, tumor, and hospital characteristics and were expressed as odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI). RESULTS: SES did not affect the likelihood of a breast cancer patient to undergo surgery (OR 1.00 per 10% stratum). In contrast, increased age and higher tumor stage were the most important factors determining whether patients underwent surgery. Patients with higher SES were less likely to undergo mastectomy (OR 0.98). Additionally, more recently diagnosed patients were less likely to undergo mastectomy (OR 0.93 per year) while patients with higher tumor stage were more likely to undergo mastectomy (OR 3.42). CONCLUSION: SES does not affect whether a patient undergoes surgery; however, higher SES increased the likelihood of BCT

Expression of hypoxia-induced proteins in ductal carcinoma in situ and invasive cancer of the male breast

AIMS: The aim of this study was to determine the role of hypoxia in male breast carcinogenesis by evaluating the expression of the hypoxia-related proteins, hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α), carbonic anhydrase IX (CAIX) and glucose transporter-1 (Glut-1), in ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) of the male breast in relation to invasive cancer (IC). METHODS: Tumour tissue blocks of 18 cases of pure DCIS, 58 DCIS cases adjacent to IC (DCIS-AIC) and the 58 IC cases were stained by immunohistochemistry for HIF-1α, CAIX and Glut-1, and expression frequencies and patterns (diffuse and/or perinecrotic) were noted. RESULTS: HIF-1α overexpression was observed in 61.1% (11/18) of pure DCIS, in 37.9% (22/58) of DCIS-AIC and in 36.2% (21/58) of IC cases (not significant (n.s.)). CAIX overexpression was observed in 16.7% (3/18) of pure DCIS, in 37.9% (22/58) of DCIS-AIC and in 24.1% (14/58) of IC cases (n.s.). Glut-1 overexpression was observed in 61.1% (11/18) of pure DCIS, in 75.9% (44/58) of DCIS-AIC and in 62.1% (36/58) of IC cases (n.s.). Expression of hypoxia-related proteins was seen around necrosis in a little over one-third of DCIS cases, and often coincided with expression in adjacent IC when present. All these observations indicate that the hypoxia response is already at its maximum in the preinvasive DCIS stage. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, male DCIS frequently shows activated hypoxia response, comparable to male IC. This indicates that the activated hypoxia response previously seen in male IC is not a late bystander but likely a genuine carcinogenetic event