Biomarkers of occupational exposure do anticancer agents: a minireview.

The majority of anticancer agents has in common DNA-damaging properties and affects not only target-cells but also non-tumour cells. Its genotoxicity has been demonstrated in experimental models and in cancer patients treated with chemotherapy. Health care personnel involved in the preparation and administration of chemotherapy is therefore at risk for adverse health effects, since most environmental sampling studies demonstrated that there is widespread contamination of work surfaces and equipments with anticancer drugs.

[Familial colorectal cancer type X: clinical, pathological and molecular characterization].

Background: Some families fulfilling the Amsterdam Criteria (AC) differ from the Lynch syndrome (LS) in that colorectal cancers (CRC) do not present microsatellite instability (MSI) and DNA mismatch repair gene mutations are not found. These families have been designated as Familial Colorectal Cancer type X (XS) and their genetic basis remains unknown.

Aims: In families fulfilling AC for LS: 1) To perform MSI testing in CRC and to correlate it with clinical and pathological characteristics and with the mutational analysis in the DNA mismatch repair genes; 2) In cases suggestive of XS, to study the suppressor pathway (SP) of carcinogenesis.

Aggressive phenotype of MYH-associated polyposis with jejunal cancer and intra-abdominal desmoid tumor: report of a case.

MYH-associated polyposis is an inherited autosomal recessive disease, linked to biallelic germline MYH mutations, which predisposes to the development of multiple colorectal adenomas and cancer. The colonic and extracolonic phenotype of this syndrome is very heterogeneous. We report the case of a young male patient with an aggressive MYH-associated polyposis phenotype.

[Need of new clinical criteria for the identification of genetic Lynch syndrome].

Background: Surveillance programs in families with Hereditary Non-Polyposis Colorectal Cancer (HNPCC), which is an autossomal dominant disease, decrease colorectal carcinoma mortality. There are multiple clinical criteria for the identification of these families, mainly: the Amsterdam Criteria (ACI), the modified Amsterdam Criteria (ACII) and the Bethesda Guidelines (BG).

Aims: To correlate, in families with HNPCC, the clinical criteria with the probability of detecting a germ-line mutation in MLH1, MSH2 and MSH6 mismatch repair genes.

Cancer risk in Barrett's oesophagus.

(Table is included in full-text article.)Barrett's oesophagus results from the replacement of the normal squamous lining of the oesophagus by a columnar epithelium. It is the sole known premalignant condition for oesophageal adenocarcinoma.