Relationship between Cytologic Results and the Extent of Intraductal Spread in Nonpalpable Breast Cancers with Nipple Discharge

Cytologic results of smears and ductal washings for 51 consecutive cases of nonpalpable breast cancers with nipple discharge were studied. Noninvasive can-cer was confirmed in 40 cases and microinvasive in 11 cases. The cytologic results were compared with the extent of cancerous lesions which was measured as the angle of cancerous spread (Q) on a map made from histological prepara-tions. Although the sensitivity of cytologic examinations was quite low (9.8% and 33.3%), the cytologic results correlated with the extent of cancerous spread in the breast (P<0.01) and with the distance from the nipple to the lesion (P<0. 01). The results in this study suggest that cytologic results can be affected by the extent of cancerous spread. The results of cytologic examination should be made use of in the process of assessing the presence of extensive cancerous lesions which cause nipple dis-charge with no palpable mass

p53 Point Mutations in Fine-Needle Aspirated Breast Cancer Cells and Their DNA Ploidy Patterns

Breast cancer cells can be obtained derectly from the patient with minimal damage by fine-needle sampling. The method of aspiration biopsy cytology (ABC) by fine-needle aspiration was developed that enabled us to prepare cancer cell nuclei for detection of p53 gene mutation by PCR-SSCP. Fine-needle sam-pling was successfully performed on 49 patients with breast tumor. Thirty-one aspirated specimens (63.3%) produced enough malignant material for assess-ment ; 18 were diagnosed as being cytologically benign. In 49 patients, surgical specimens from the same tumors were examined for DNA aneuploid and S-phase fraction using flow cytometry. Twenty-four of the 31 breast cancer specimens (77.4%) were classified as aneuploid pattern. p53 gene mutations were detected in 15 patients (48.4%) ; all showed point mutations. In this series, no significant correlation was found with respect to the factors such as aneuploidy, p53 muta-tion, and ER in various tumor size or menopausal status. On the contrary, there was a significant relationship between aneuploidy pattern and p53 mutation ; fifteen p53 mutated cancer cell samples showed all aneuploid patterns. Further-more, these 2 factors showed a tendency of high incidence in advanced clinical stage, histologic grade, and tumor size. Thus, taking ABC into consideration, a combined examination of p53 mutation and DNA histograms derived from flow cytometry in fresh tissue samples could be a valuable tool in clinical use for biological evaluation of breast cancer

Enhancement of Murine Tumor Cell Lysability by Interleukin-2 Activated Killer Cells After Treatment with Mitomycin C

The cytotoxicity of interleukin-2 activated killer cells with antitumor drug, mitomycin C (MMC) against murine tumor cell lines with acquired drug resis-tance was evaluated in vitro by a 51Cr release cytotoxicity assay. Tumor cell lines, a mouse fibrosarcoma cells (MCA-F) and its individual metastatic lung clones (MCA-F-M1, 2, 3, and 4) have been established in vitro. Furthermore, using a soft agar cloning technique, MMC resistant clones (MCA-F-M2-1, 2, 4, 8, and 10) and sensitive clones (MCA-F-M1-3, MCA-F-M3-8, 9, MCA-F-M4-9, and 10) were established and their lysability was examined with or without MMC against lymphokine-activated killer (LAK) cells, demonstrating that LAK cells showed high % cytotoxicity against 2 resistant clones (MCA-F-M2-1 and 8) by the 7 day-exposure of 1.0 pg/ml MMC concentration in culture but with a low % cytotoxicity in the case of only 3 day-MMC exposure. The other resis-tant clones showed high % cytotoxicity at 3 day-MMC exposure. On the other hand, all the sensitive clones showed high % cytotoxicity against LAK cells with the only 1 day-exposure of MMC. Thus, the combination of LAK cells and MMC treatment had a synergistic effect on MMC resistant clones as well as sensitive clones and these results suggested that the lysability of MMC resistant clones might be due to the altered susceptibility to LAK cells by use of MMC time-dependently

High-dose Chemotherapy with Peripheral Blood Stem Cell (PBSCT) Support for Recurrent Breast Cancer

Between May 1995 and June 1999 Seven patients with recurrent breast cancer received high dose chemotherapy (HDCT) with autologous peripheral blood stem cell transplantation (PBSCT) . The HDCT regimen consisted of epirubicin (120-260 mg/m? ), cyclophosphamide (0-4000 mg/body) . Medroxy-progesterone (1200 mg/day) was given more than 2 weeks prior to induction chemotherapy. HDCT with PBSCT support was performed on all patients on schedule. No toxic death by chemotherapy occurred. The clinical response was CR in 3, PR in 3 and NC in one patient. The rate of good clinical re-sponse was 86 %. The mean survival duration after recurrence was 24 months (range10-34) . The mean survival period after HDCT was 12 months (range 8-25) . The durations of efficacy were shorter than had been ex-pected. While this treatment resulted in higher rates of clinical response, the prognosis for patients with metastatic tumor was not improved