B-cell precursor acute lyphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a common pediatric malignancy and patients may have significant benefits from monoclonal antibodies therapy with increased survival rates. Positive CD20 expression is identified in about half of these patients and its presence may serve as a prognostic factor in disease evolution. We performed a retrospective study including 114 patients diagnosed with B-ALL and evaluated the expression of CD20 through flow cytometry at diagnosis and on day 15. Additional immunophenotypic analyses as well as cytogenetic and molecular genetic analyses were also performed. We observed an increase in the mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) of CD20 between diagnosis—1.9 (1.2–3.26) and day 15: 6.17 (2.14–27.4), (p < 0.0001). Furthermore, we assessed that both diagnosis and day 15 CD20 MFI had an impact on RFS and OS, respectively, for cut-off values of >8.08 at diagnosis and >28.65 at day 15. In conclusion, CD20 expression appears to be a poor prognostic feature of B-ALL in pediatric patients. In this study, stratification of the outcome by the intensity of CD20 has implications concerning the allocation to rituximab-based chemotherapy and may offer new, potentially useful information for pediatric patients with B-ALL.

Vanadium has been shown to be beneficial in the oral treatment of animal models of type 1 and type 2 diabetes. The aim of the study was to evaluate the short‐term effects of sodium metavanadate in prediabetic BB‐DP rats. To do this, 96 rats were divided into 4 equal groups. Groups VI, V2, V3 were treated with sodium metavanadate (0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 mg/ml respectively) and sodium chloride (0.5 mg/ml) in drinking water for 7 days. Group C received only sodium chloride (0.5 mg/ml). Blood glucose (BG), glycosuria, ketonuria, body weight and insulinemia were determined. The age of onset of diabetes was significantly higher for groups V2, V3 compared to group C, (p < 0.05) and depends on the metavanadate concentration (V3 vs. V1, p=0.006). The incidence of diabetes was lower in the rats treated with metavanadate than in the control group, but this difference was not statistically significant. In diabetic rats, the BG at the onset was higher in group C than in groups V, p < 0.05. Insulinemia, at the onset of the treatment as well as immediately after its cessation showed a drop in the treatment groups, proportionally to the dosage of vanadium, but later increased slowly and continuously until the end of the experiment. In conclusion, metavanadate delays the development of diabetes in BB‐DP rats, but does not prevent its onset. A milder form of diabetes occurs in diabetic rats treated with metavanadate. The effects depend on the metavanadate concentration and 0.2 mg/ml is preferable.

The aims of our study were to measure autoantibodies to glutamic acid decarboxylase and autoantibodies to protein tyrosine phosphatase in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, patients with impaired glucose tolerance, and healthy controls of Asian origin from Birmingham, United Kingdom. According to our findings, 27% (9/33) of patients initially diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus carry autoantibodies to GAD65.

Background: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) remains one of the most aggressive tumors with dismal prognosis and survival rates. Identifying early molecular diagnostic markers could contribute in improving survival in this intractable disease. Chromosomal rearrangements and altered expression of the gene have been implicated in PDAC progression to metastasis. S100A4 protein promotes invasion and metastasis by binding to several intracellular target proteins and modulating their function. ERBB2 is marker of poor prognosis in multiple cancer types. This study examined the potential clinical significance of S100A4 and ERBB2 expression in PDAC. Materials and methods: Pairs of non-tumoral and tumoral tissues from a total of 73 patients with PDAC were included in our study to assess the gene expression of S100A4 by two-step qPCR using TaqMan hydrolysis probes. ERBB2 gene expression was assessed by SYBR Green chemistry. S100A4 protein expression was evaluated by immunohistochemistry. Results: Gene expression of S100A4 was increased at advances stages of PDAC (p-value= 0.02) and with tumor grading. Kaplan-Meier survival distributions showed a significant difference in patient's survival outcome according to their S100A4 expression by immunohistochemistry (lower or higher than 10%. p-value=0.043). Multi-variate Log Rank (MantelCox) test confirmed that resection type and S100A4 protein expression has a significant value in correlation with PDAC. Similarly, significant correlations were observed between ERBB2 gene expression and TNM tumor stage (p-value= 0.0048) and tumor grading (p-value=0.048). Additional analysis showed a statistically significant correlation between S100A4 and ERBB2 gene expression levels (p-value=0.0094). Conclusions: Our results showed that both S100A4 and ERBB2 are associated with poor outcomes in PDAC, and might be valuable prognostic biomarkers.