Bile Cast Nephropathy Caused by Obstructive Pancreatic Carcinoma and Failed ERCP.

Bile cast nephropathy is an often overlooked condition of acute renal injury in the setting of high serum bilirubin. While the exact pathophysiology remains unknown, possible mechanisms of renal injury are tubular obstruction from bile casts, direct toxicity from bile acids, and decreased renal perfusion due to hemodynamic changes. We present a patient with hyperbilirubinemia as a result of common bile duct obstruction due to pancreatic adenocarcinoma who developed anuric acute renal injury.

CD44, SHH and SOX2 as novel biomarkers in esophageal cancer patients treated with neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy.

Background And Purpose: Neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (nCRT) improves survival in esophageal cancer (EC) patients, but the response to treatment is heterogeneous and little is known regarding prognostic and predictive markers in these patients. CD44, SOX2 and SHH have been implicated in resistance to CRT, possibly through an association with a cancer stem cell phenotype.

Material And Methods: 101 EC patients treated with nCRT and surgery were included.

Loss of CD44 and SOX2 expression is correlated with a poor prognosis in esophageal adenocarcinoma patients.

Background: It has been suggested that markers associated with cancer stem cells (CSC) may play a role in esophageal cancer. Our aim was to investigate the expression pattern of proposed CSC markers ALDH1, Axin2, BMI1, CD44, and SOX2 in esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) and to relate their expression to survival.

Methods: In this study we included 94 EAC patients and examined the expression of the above-mentioned markers by using immunohistochemistry on tissue microarrays.