A patient with carcinoma of the right breast and coincidental primary hyperparathyroidism is presented. The distinction between hypercalcemia of malignant and hyperparathyroid origins is based on biochemical analysis and localisation of parathyroid adenoma on a computer tomogram of the neck.
This work studied the correlations between survivin, bcl-2 and p53 in infiltrating ductal carcinoma of the breast. A total number of 382 cases were collected from 3 hospitals in northeastern Malaysia. Survivin, bcl-2 and p53 were detected by immunohistochemistry on samples prepared from tissue blocks. Significant correlations were found between tumor histological grades and tumor size and lymph node involvement. Highly significant statistical correlations (p<0.001) were found in expression of the markers under study. It is concluded that such significant correlations may imply that the alterations in the expression take place in a concerted fashion, implying that many of these cases may share common abnormalities.
Tumor-associated macrophages play a crucial role in breast cancer progression and tumor angiogenesis. However, evaluation of tumor-associated macrophages incorporating their histological locations is lacking. The aim of this study was to clarify whether macrophages in tumor stroma and macrophages in tumor cell nests have distinctive properties in relation to pertinent breast cancer clinicopathological parameters and tumor angiogenesis. In 94 human invasive breast ductal carcinomas, tumor-associated macrophages were immunostained with anti-CD68 antibody and counted or graded according to these histological locations. Microvessels were immunostained with anti-CD34 antibody and counted for microvessel density. We found that the presence of tumor stromal and tumor nest macrophages was closely correlated (p = 0.001). Both tumor stromal and tumor nest macrophages were associated with mitotic count (p = 0.001 and p = 0.037, respectively). However, only higher tumor stromal macrophage grades were associated with higher tumor grades (p = 0.004) and negative estrogen receptor status (p = 0.007). Multivariate analysis showed that tumors with a high mitotic count score (score 3 vs. scores 1 and 2) had a higher tumor stromal macrophage density (Grades III and IV) when adjusted for tumor size, tubule formation, and estrogen receptor status (odds ratio 3.41, p = 0.010). The tumor nest macrophage count significantly correlated with the microvessel density (p
Breast cancer is increasingly reported in young premenopausal women in Asia. Adjuvant chemotherapy improves survival; however, it has a unique consequence of ovarian failure in premenopausal patients.
Axillary nodal status is one of the most important prognostic factors in breast cancer. In the present study we used it to determine the predictors of axillary lymph node metastases in breast cancer and to determine if there is a group of patients in whom minimal axillary surgery is indicated.