Clinico-morphological pattern of intracranial tumors in children

Objective: The objective of present study was to observe the histopathological pattern of intracranial tumors in children (\u3c 15 yrs) and to correlate the site of lesion along with the histological diagnosis. Setting: The study included consecutive cases of intracranial tumors diagnosed in children (\u3c 15 yrs.) in the section of histopathology at the Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi during the period of three years. Methods:The initial histological evaluation of these lesions was performed on H and E stained section of paraffin embedded tissue. Special stains and immunohistochemical analysis was done whenever indicated. Results:During the study period, fifty-four cases of intracranial tumors were diagnosed in children. The age ranged from 1-1/2 years to 4 years with male to female ratio of 1.1:1. Astrocytoma comprised 39% of all intracranial tumors of childhood. Medulloblastoma (18.6%) ranked the second most prevalent brain tumor followed by empendymoma (13%), oligodendroglioma 7.5% while non-Hodgkin\u27s lymphoma, primitive neuroblastoma 3.7% and ganglioglioma 3.7% while non-Hodgkin\u27s lymphoma, primitive neuroectodermal tumors, mixed germ cell tumor, pineoblastoma, choroid plexus carcinoma and malignant meningioma constituted 1.8% each. Conculsion: Astrocytoma was the most common pediatric brain tumor. Medulloblastoma was more common in males while pilocytic astrocytoma was more frequent in females. Posterior cranial fossa was the most common site (43.5%) of pediatric brain tumors. Low grade astrocytoma was more prevalent in posterior cranial fossa as compared to high grade astrocytoma which was more frequent in the supratentorial region

Clinico-morphological pattern and frequency of bone cancer

Objective: The present study was done to find out the frequency of malignant tumors of bone and to categorize the prevelence of various histological types of osseous malignancies with respect to age, sex and site of origin. Setting: This study included consecutive cases of malignant bone tumors, which were diagnosed in the department of pathology at the Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi during the period of three years (1995-1997). Methods: These tumors were initially evaluated on H & E stained section from paraffin embedded tissue blocks. Special stains and immunohistochemical analysis was performed whenever required. Results: A total of 169 malignant bone tumors were diagnosed during the study period. Metastatic tumors accounted for 28.4% of all malignant tumors of bone. Osteogenic sarcoma (27.2%) was the most frequent primary tumor of bone followed by Ewing’s sarcoma (12.4%), Non- Hodgkin’s lymphoma (10.6%), Chondrosarcoma (8.3%), Plasma Cell Myeloma (8.3%) and other rare entities (4.8%) in order of frequency. Conclusion: The most common malignant neoplasm diagnosed in osseous biopsies was metastatic tumors. Osteogenic sarcoma was the most frequent primary bone tumor in this series. The bone tumors were relatively more prevalent in males. The frequency of malignant bone tumor was relatively high as compared to developed countries

Immunohistochemical evaluation of small round cell tumors of childhood

Objective: This study was done to evaluate the pediatric undifferentiated small round cell tumors with immunohistochemical staining. Setting: The present study included consecutive cases of small round cell tumors which were diagnosed in children (\u3c15 years) in the section of Histopathology at the Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi during the period of two years. Methods: The group of undifferentiated small round cell tumors were evaluated immunohistochemically by using a panel of antibodies on sections from routinely processed, formalin fixed, paraffin embedded tissue blocks. Results: The category of undifferentiated small round cell tumors included rhabdomyosarcoma (23.2%), primitive neuroectodermal tumor (17.9%), non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (16.1%), neuroblastoma (14.2%), Ewing’s sarcoma (10.7%) in order of frequency. Osteosarcoma (Small cell variant), retinoblastoma and medulloblastoma comprised 1.8% each. In seven cases (12.5%), the immunohistochemical analysis was inconclusive. Conclusion: Immunohistochemistry is a very valuable diagnostic tool which helps in distinguishing the undifferentiated tumors especially small round cell tumors. The immunohistochemical staining needs to be performed routinely for undifferentiated tumors in diagnostic histopathology

Are DNA repair factors promising biomarkers for personalized therapy in gastric cancer?

Chronic inflammation is a driving force for gastric carcinogenesis. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) generated during the inflammatory process generates DNA damage that is processed through the DNA repair pathways. In this study, we profiled key DNA repair proteins (single-strand-selective monofunctional uracil-DNA glycosylase 1 [SMUG1], Flap endonuclease 1 [FEN1], X-ray repair cross-complementing gene 1 [XRCC1], and Ataxia telangiectasia mutated [ATM]) involved in ROS-induced oxidative DNA damage repair in gastric cancer and correlated to clinicopathological outcomes. High expression of SMUG1, FEN1, and XRCC1 correlated to high T-stage (T3/T4) (p-values: 0.001, 0.005, and 0.02, respectively). High expression of XRCC1 and FEN1 also correlated to lymph node-positive disease (p-values: 0.009 and 0.02, respectively). High expression of XRCC1, FEN1, and SMUG1 correlated with poor disease-specific survival (DSS) (p-values: 0.001, 0.006, and 0.05, respectively) and poor disease-free survival (DFS) (p-values: 0.001, 0.001, and 0.02, respectively). Low expression of ATM correlated to lymph node positivity (p=0.03), vascular invasion (p=0.05), and perineural invasion (p=0.005) and poor DFS (p=0.001) and poor DSS (p=0.003). In the multivariate Cox model, high XRCC1 and low ATM were independently associated with poor survival (p=0.008 and 0.011, respectively). Our observation supports the hypothesis that DNA repair factors are promising biomarkers for personalized therapy in gastric cancer. Antioxid. Redox Signal. 18, 2392–2398

Caspase-cleaved cytokeratin-18 and tumour regression in gastro-oesophageal adenocarcinomas treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy

AIM: To examine cytokeratin-18 (CK-18) and caspase-cleaved CK-18 expression in tumours and correlate with clinicopathological outcomes including tumour regression grade (TRG) response

Thioredoxin interacting protein and its association with clinical outcome in gastro-oesophageal adenocarcinoma

AbstractThe overall prognosis for operable gastro-oesophageal adenocarcinoma remains poor and therefore neoadjuvant chemotherapy has become the standard of care, in addition to radical surgery. Certain anticancer agents (e.g. anthracyclines and cisplatin) generate damaging reactive oxygen species as by-products of their mechanism of action. Drug effectiveness can therefore depend upon the presence of cellular redox buffering systems that are often deregulated in cancer. The expression of the redox protein, thioredoxin interacting protein, was assessed in gastro-oesophageal adenocarcinomas. Thioredoxin interacting protein expression was assessed using conventional immunohistochemistry on a tissue microarray of 140 adenocarcinoma patients treated by primary surgery alone and 88 operable cases treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy. In the primary surgery cases, high thioredoxin interacting protein expression associated with a lack of lymph node involvement (p=0.005), no perineural invasion (p=0.030) and well/moderate tumour differentiation (p=0.033). In the neoadjuvant tumours, high thioredoxin interacting protein expression was an independent marker for improved disease specific survival (p=0.002) especially in cases with anthracycline-based regimes (p=0.008). This study highlights the potential of thioredoxin interacting protein as a biomarker for response in neoadjuvant treated gastro-oesophageal adenocarcinoma and may represent a useful therapeutic target due to its association with tumour progression