The early diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma is challenging because it requires specific biomarkers. It has been determined that deregulation or dysfunction of microRNAs (miRNAs) could contribute to development of cancer. The aim of this research was to evaluate the main role of tissue miRNAs as prognostic biomarkers for early diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma. We used quantitative real-time PCR to evaluate the level of miR-148b and miR-25 expressions in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients and normal tissues and their relationship with clinicopathological features and survival in HCC patients. Quantitative real-time PCR was observed that median relative expression of miR-148b decreased in tumors tissue compared with normal tissues (P<0.05), while overexpression of miR-25 was observed in HCC tissues in comparison with normal tissues (P<0.003). The results suggested that the low level of miR-148b expression was remarkably related to tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stage (stages III and IV; P=0.024) and vein invasion (P=0.032). Nevertheless, there was no significantly relationship of miR-148b expression with other clinical factors including sex (P = 0.612), age (P=0.536), size of tumor (P=0.513), and hepatic cirrhosis (P = 0.417). Moreover, increased level of miR-25 expression was remarkably associated with TNM stage (P=0.013). Kaplan-Meier survival and log-rank test confirm that shorter overall survival was strongly linked to decreased expression of miR-148b (P=0.004), while high expression of miR-25 was associated with shorter time survival than that patient with low level of miR-25 expression (P = 0.027). The result of multivariate Cox proportional hazards model suggested that low miR-148b expression, high miR-25 expression TNM stage, and vein invasion were independently related to poor survival of HCC patients in terms of miR-148b and miR-25 (Tables 3 and 4). Our results indicated that downregulation of miR-148b could play a role as an independent prognostic factor in patients with HCC. Furthermore, miR-25 can be as a prognostic marker and high expression of miR-25 has predictive value for poor prognosis in HCC patients.

BackgroundAtherosclerosis accounts for a large proportion of cardiovascular system associated morbidity and mortality. We studied the possible association between the histopathological changes of the coronary atherosclerotic lesions and the risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD) using autopsy cases.MethodsWe performed an autopsy analysis (n = 13, 4 women, 9 men mean age 67.5 years; age range 56–93 years) of SCD which occurred in patients aged over 50 years during March 2010 to December 2013. The following variables were considered: sex, age, medical history, autopsy findings to macroscopic and histological evaluation of the heart. The autopsies were performed according to standard techniques. In all subjects, the heart was dissected following standard autopsy protocol and a 5 cm section of the right coronary artery (RCA) in the atrio-ventricular groove from its origin, a 5 cm segment of the left anterior descending artery (LADA) distal to the origin of the circumflex artery, but including the region of origin of the circumflex branch and left coronary artery (LCA) from its origin till the circumflex branch were excised, dissected out, fixed in 10 % formalin, marked for identification and sent for histopathological analysis.ResultsAtherosclerotic plaques were identified in 6.5 % of specimens, 69.34 % of males and 30.66 % of female. Such plaques were typically concentric and more represented with necrosis, calcification, cholesterol crystals, and giant cells, as well as had a higher inflammatory cell count. Furthermore, intima and media thickness of coronary arteries were significantly higher in studied specimens with visualize the connective tissue layers of the adventitia and the fatty acid containing adipose cells in the periadventitial tissue. Furthermore, the degree of microscopic lesion of atherosclerosis increased proportionally with the increase in the intensity of lipid deposition and with the percentage of collagen in the atherosclerotic plaques.ConclusionIn this study, age estimate to be a risk factor for coronary atherosclerosis in individuals more than 50 years old and may be used to predict SCD. Altogether, an enhanced understanding of the pathobiologic processes responsible for atherosclerotic changes might allow for early identification of a high-risk coronary plaque and thereby provide a rationale for innovative diagnostic and/or therapeutic strategies for the management of coronary patients and prevention of acute coronary syndromes.

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Background: Breast cancer is one of the most common malignancies. The relationship between the pathogenesis of breast tumours and their invasive behaviour is an important issue that has been discussed recently. ALDH1 and TGFb2 genes can be mentioned among the most crucial signalling and molecular pathways that play an active role in tumour invasive behaviour. The aim of this study was to determine the expression level of ALDH1 and TGFb2 genes in breast cancer and its relationship with histology in breast cancer patients.Method and material: This cross-sectional study was done on 65 breast cancer patients who had been referred to the Army 501 hospital during the years of 1992-1994. Data was collected using the patient records, and the results of immunohistochemically staining were obtained in the laboratory. Data were analyzed by SPSS software using t-test, Chi-square and Fisher tests. The level of significance was considered to be 0.05.Results: In this study, we assessed the expression of these genes in tissue samples of 65 patients with breast cancer and its relation with the histology and clinical progress. The expression of ALDH1 in the malignant breast tissue was 83.5% (55 out of 65 samples) and the expression of TGFb2 gene showed 54 samples (83.1%) were positive. There was a significant relationship between lymphatic drainage and ALDH1 expression. Conclusion: There was a significant relationship between ALDH1 expression, tumour size, neuronal invasion, tumour grade, metastasis, and lymph node involvement. There was also a significant relationship between TGFb2 expression and tumour size, metastasis, tumour grade, and lymph node involvement. There was no significant relationship between the expression of ALDH1, TGFb2, and the type of pathology and history of chemotherapy