Pathological lymph node involvement at surgery is a significant predictive factor of recurrence in locally advanced breast cancer treated with concomitant epirubicin-docetaxel neoadjuvant chemotherapy: a cohort study.

Background: Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) is the standard therapy for locally advanced breast cancer. Recently, several studies have revealed that clearance of axillary lymph node involvement is an independent factor for survival irrespective of the response of the primary lesion. However, in daily practice, it is difficult to fully examine every lymph node that has been surgically sampled, in view of pathology laboratory workload and cost.

p53 expression status is a significant molecular marker in predicting the time to endocrine therapy failure in recurrent breast cancer: a cohort study.

Background: Hormone receptor status has been one of the most important factors in predicting the response to endocrine therapy in breast cancer patients. However, half of those patients with estrogen receptor-positive tumors do not respond to endocrine therapy. There have been no universal factors for predicting resistance to endocrine therapy in this population.

Elevated serum CA15-3 levels correlate with positive estrogen receptor and initial favorable outcome in patients who died from recurrent breast cancer.

Background: The clinical usefulness of circulating tumor markers in breast cancer as recurrence indicators during follow-up or monitoring treatment response is still an open question. There are some patients with normal tumor marker levels who have apparent recurrence foci. In this study, we evaluated the relationships between CEA or CA15-3 levels and clinicopathological factors or outcome in patients who had died from recurrent breast cancer.

[A case of recurrent breast cancer with lung metastasis and overexpression of HER2 that responded to UFT and cyclophosphamide combination therapy after sequential treatments with epirubicin, taxanes, and trastuzumab].

We describe a 57-year-old woman who underwent modified mastectomy for right breast cancer (T2N0M0) with overexpression of HER2, in whom lung metastasis developed 3 years after operation. She received sequential chemotherapy, including epirubicin plus cyclophosphamide, docetaxel, paclitaxel and trastuzumab, but the lung lesion progressed after transiently showing a partial response. Oral treatment with UFT and cyclophosphamide was begun as fifth-line treatment.

Complete absence of bile and pancreatic ducts in a newborn: a new entity of congenital anomaly in hepato-pancreatic development.

We examined a newborn who had no bile and pancreatic ducts. Hydrops was evident after 29 weeks of gestation and she died shortly after birth, weighing 1,368 g. One of her siblings had died of hydrops at about six months of gestation, and there were two more miscarriages of unknown cause.

Higher plasma vascular endothelial growth factor levels correlate with menopause, overexpression of p53, and recurrence of breast cancer.

Purpose: Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is an important factor involved in angiogenesis. Many studies have reported that the expression of VEGF in breast cancer is an unfavorable prognostic factor. However, there are few studies that have analyzed blood VEGF levels because most used serum VEGF, generally thought to originate from platelets.

Undifferentiated (embryonal) sarcoma of the liver in middle-aged adults: smooth muscle differentiation determined by immunohistochemistry and electron microscopy.

Undifferentiated (embryonal) sarcoma of the liver (UESL) is a rare pediatric liver malignancy that is extremely uncommon in middle-aged individuals. We studied 2 cases of UESL in middle-aged adults (1 case in a 49-year-old woman and the other in a 62-year-old man) by histology, immunohistochemistry, and electron microscopy to clarify the cellular characteristics of this peculiar tumor. One tumor showed a mixture of spindle cells, polygonal cells, and multinucleated giant cells within a myxoid matrix and also revealed focal areas of a storiform pattern in a metastatic lesion.

Brain metastases from asymptomatic adenocarcinoma of the pancreas: an autopsy case report.

Background: Brain metastasis from pancreatic cancer is extremely rare. Because pancreatic cancer usually has a rapidly progressive nature, the majority of affected patients die from primary lesions before exhibiting clinical signs suggestive of brain metastases.

Case Description: The patient was a 62-year-old man who developed generalized convulsion followed by right hemiparesis accompanied by decreased consciousness level.

An evaluation of predictive factors involved in clinical or pathological response to primary chemotherapy in advanced breast cancer.

Background: The usefulness of primary chemotherapy has been widely recognized and applied to routine clinical practice to improve prognosis by downstaging. Nevertheless, none of many trials has been able to show a positive effect of primary chemotherapy in terms of prognosis, and predictive factors of outcome have not been defined and are still under investigation.

Methods: Primary chemotherapy was given to 50 patients with advanced breast cancer.