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AddressesBackground The first step in the evaluation of patients with pleural effusion is to determine whether the effusion is a transudate or an exudate. Osteopontin (OPN) is a pleiotropic integrin-binding protein with many functions. We assessed pleural effusion and serum concentrations of OPN and C-reactive protein (CRP) in patients with different types of pleural effusions.

Objective: HER-2/neu status in gastric carcinomas (GCs) has not been studied before in the Egyptian population. Materials and Methods: Seventy-three GCs were evaluated for the expression of HER-2/neu and Ki-67 using immunohistochemistry (IHC). Fluorescence in situ Hybridization (FISH) was done for HER2/neu IHC score 2+ cases. Results: Out of the 73 gastric carcinomas, 23 (31.5%) were score 0, 17 (23.3%) were score 1+, 23 (31.5%) were score 2+, and 10 (13.7%) were score 3+. FISH analysis revealed that the HER-2/neu gene was amplified in 11 out of the 23 cases (47.8%) scored 2+ by IHC. Therefore, the overall HER-2/neu positivity rate was 28.8% and it was significantly associated with higher T-stage and lymphovascular invasion (LVI). The Ki-67 expression rate ranged between 10% and 100%, with 84.9% of the cases (n = 62) featuring high Ki-67 scores. High Ki-67 score was significantly associated with male sex, tumor grade, and number of positive nodes. HER-2/neu protein expression correlated significantly with Ki-67 score. Twenty tumors showed combined HER-2/neu positivity and high Ki-67 score and were significantly associated with higher T-stage and occurrence of LVI, implying a more aggressive behavior. Conclusions: The rate of HER-2/neu positive GCs in our series simulates universal rates, thereby mandating routine evaluation of HER-2/neu status in all GCs submitted to our laboratory to benefit from trastuzumab therapy. Further studies on a larger number of GCs are required to prove that the concurrent HER-2/neu positivity and high Ki-67 score are markers of worse prognosis.

A new series of pyrazoline derivatives was designed and synthesized with the objective of developing agents with anti-inflammatory activity together with chemoprevention of hepatobiliary malignancies. The prepared compounds were evaluated for their anti-inflammatory activity using carrageenan-induced granuloma bioassay, using celecoxib as a reference drug. Ulcerogenic effect and acute toxicity profiles (ALD50) for the most active compounds were also determined. Compound 5c was proved to display anti-inflammatory activity better than celecoxib. Compounds 4b, 5d, 5c and 8 were found to be safer than indomethacin with respect to ulcerogenic effect and were well tolerated by the experimental animals with high safety margin (ALD50 >300 mg/Kg). Moreover, histopathological examination was carried out to detect the anti-inflammatory effect of the tested compounds on the livers of carrageenan-injected rats. On the other hand, compounds 4b, 4c, 4d, 5b, 5c, 5d, 6a, 6b, 6c, 6d, 8 and 9 were selected by the NCI to be evaluated for their anticancer activities but none has passed to the 5-dose assay. In addition, the ligand-receptor interactions of the most active compounds with COX-2 were investigated by performing docking studies using Molecular Operating Environment (MOE) version 2008.10.