AimsVitamin D receptor (VDR) expression has been associated with survival in several cancer sites. This study aims to evaluate the association between VDR expression and prognosis in oesophageal adenocarcinoma patients.ResultsDuring a median of 2.5 (maximum 9) years of follow-up, 75 patients died. In analysis adjusted for confounders, higher VDR expression was associated with an improved overall survival (HR 0.49 95% CI 0.25–0.96) and disease-specific survival (HR 0.50 95% CI 0.26–0.99), when comparing the highest with the lowest tertile of expression. These associations were strongest in sensitivity analysis restricted to junctional tumours.ConclusionsThis study is the first to demonstrate that patients with higher VDR expression in oesophageal adenocarcinoma have a more favourable prognosis. Further work is needed to validate these findings, and to define the role of VDR in the aetiology, progression and management of oesophageal adenocarcinoma.MethodsOesophageal adenocarcinoma specimens and clinical data were collected from 130 patients treated with neo-adjuvant chemotherapy prior to surgical resection at the Northern Ireland Cancer Centre between 2004 and 2012. Tissue microarrays were created and immunohistochemical staining for VDR was performed on triplicate tumour cores from each resection specimen. Cox proportional hazards models were applied to evaluate associations between VDR, according to tertiles of expression, and survival outcomes.

Human herpesvirus-8 (HHV8) is a recognised precursor for a number of neoplastic and non-neoplastic processes. Immunosuppressed recipients of both solid organ and haematopoietic stem cell transplants are at risk of life-threatening lytic reactivations of HHV8-infected B-lymphocytes, primary infections after receiving grafts from HHV8-seropositive donors and more rarely by the direct transplantation of malignant Kaposi sarcoma cells seeded within graft tissue. We describe the case of an HHV8-seronegative patient with confirmed, post-orthotopic liver transplant transmission of HHV8 from a seropositive donor with quantitative evidence of viraemia and subsequent development of disseminated visceral and cutaneous Kaposi sarcoma with a rapidly fatal outcome.

Lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma (LELC) is an uncommon variant of squamous cell carcinoma, which is histologically identical to lymphoepithelial carcinoma of the nasopharynx. LELCs have been reported at a variety of sites, including the stomach, salivary gland, thymus, cervix, endometrium, breast, skin, bladder, and lung. We report 2 LELCs of the vagina and 1 of the anal canal, the first report of LELC at the latter site. All 3 neoplasms were diffusely positive with p16 (block-type immunoreactivity) and the anal canal lesion contained high-risk human papillomavirus type 16; the 2 vaginal neoplasms underwent human papillomavirus testing but were unsuitable for analysis. All cases were Epstein-Barr virus negative. In reporting these cases, we highlight the potential for misdiagnosis and suggest an association with human papillomavirus infection similar to LELCs in the uterine cervix.