No abstract

The combined immunohistochemical evaluation of EZH2 (enhancer of zeste homolog 2) and ERRα (estrogen-related receptor α), in relation to clinicopathological prognostic factors and patients' outcome, has not been performed yet in colorectal carcinoma (CRC). In order to achieve this aim, 120 samples were extracted; 60 cases of CRC; and 60 samples from normal colonic tissue. Our study showed that 63.3% and 38.3% of CRC cases reveal high EZH2 and high ERRα nuclear expression, respectively. 6.6% and 8.3% of normal colonic mucosa samples express low EZH2 and low ERRα nuclear expression, respectively. High EZH2 and high ERRα expression correlate with late tumor stages (p = 0.001 each), high grade (p = 0.001, p = 0.009 respectively), positive lymph node involvement (p = 0.001, p = 0.002 respectively) and larger tumor size (p = 0.001 each). There is a moderate highly statistically significant agreement (κ = 0.467, p = 0.001) between EZH2 and ERRα immunohistochemical expression. By Kaplan Meier analysis, high EZH2 and high ERRα show statistically significant shorter overall survival, and progression free survival than cases with low EZH2 and low ERRα immunohistochemical expression, respectively. Thus, EZH2 and ERRα might serve as potential promising prognostic markers in CRC.

Background: Fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) is considered the gold standard diagnostic test for the diagnosis of thyroid nodules. FNAC is a cost effective procedure that provides specific diagnosis rapidly with minimal complications. Based on the cytology findings, patients could be followed in cases of benign diagnosis and subjected to surgery in cases of malignant diagnosis therefore decreasing the rate of unnecessary surgery. Aim of work:To correlate pre-operative fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) to post-operative paraffin section results in diagnosis of solitary thyroid nodule (STN).Patients and methods: This is a prospective study, it was performed on 30 patients diagnosed as solitary thyroid nodule; the results for FNAC and histopathological examination were reviewed, evaluated and correlated.Results: On FNAC, out of 30 cases there were 19 benign lesions; 17 (56.66%) cases were true negative (TN) and 2 (6.67%) cases were false negative (FN).There were 11 (36.67%) of undetermined significance or suspicious neoplastic lesions diagnosed by FNAC; 10 (33.33%) cases were true positive (TP) and only one (3.33%) case was false positive (FP). After comparison of results of FNAC with histopathology, the sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value and negative predictive value were 83.33%, 94.44%, 90%, 90.91% and 89.47%, respectively. Conclusion:Fine needle aspiration was a significantly better predictor of malignancy, we recommend this procedure in the light of other investigations as a primary investigation of thyroid lesions in a patient with solitary thyroid nodules as it should be advised for exclusion of malignancy.

Background: Malignant pleural mesothelioma is a fatal and aggressive disease; most patients present with advanced stages. Mesothelioma have one of the highest circulating serum VEGF levels of any solid tumor which is considered as a poor prognostic factor in this disease. Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) and its receptor CD74 found to be associated with angiogenic activity. Role of MIF has not been shown yet in MPM. This study targets the correlation between expression of VEGF and CD74 (on stored retrospective 44 paraffin embedded mesothelioma specimens) and tumor response to chemotherapy Gemcitabine and platinum combination. The study also figures out the prognostic impact of VEGF and CD74 on the progression free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) of the studied patients. Methods: Immunohistochemical staining for VEGF scored from 0 to 3 represent the percentage of cytoplasmic positively stained cells in the tumor. The CD74 expression was recorded in the tumor and the stroma semiquantitatively using the histoscore method with the final score resulting from the percentage of tumor cells staining positively multiplied by the staining intensity grade. Both CD74 and VEGF immunohistochemical markers were furtherly categorized in the statistical analyses as none (0)/low (1) vs medium (2)/high expression (3). Results: Combined med/high expression of CD74-TS and VEGF are significantly associated with poor response to gemcitabine and cisplatin chemotherapy (P = 0.03). VEGF expression level did not correlate with PFS (P = 0.09) while high CD74 (T) (P = 0.001) and (S) (P = 0.006) expression significantly impair PFS. Med/high VEGF expression is significantly associated with shorter OS (P = 0.025) whereas, med/high expression of CD74-TS yield a highly significant shorter OS. (P = 0.001). Conclusions: High expression of VEGF and CD74 T&S are inversely correlated with OS and response to chemotherapy with gemcitabine and cisplatin in Egyptian mesothelioma patients. Legal entity responsible for the study: Clinical Oncology Department Ethical Committe Funding: Has not received any funding Disclosure: All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.