Publications by authors named "Maria T Rodrigo-Calvo"

Article Synopsis
  • Scientists don't know much about vulvar squamous cell carcinoma (VSCC), a cancer mostly found in older women, especially about its mutations and how different types affect survival.
  • In a study of 60 patients, they found three main types of VSCC related to the human papillomavirus (HPV) and some common gene mutations, particularly in the TP53 gene.
  • Patients with mutations in TP53 and CCND1 had a much higher chance of their cancer coming back, suggesting that these changes could help doctors find better treatments for VSCC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Early-stage colorectal carcinoma (CRC)-pT1-is a therapeutic challenge and presents some histological features related to lymph node metastasis (LNM). A significant proportion of pT1 CRCs are treated surgically, resulting in a non-negligible surgical-associated mortality rate of 1.5-2%.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Lymph node (LN) metastasis is an important prognostic factor in colorectal cancer (CRC). We aimed to demonstrate the presence of lymphatic vessels (LV) in the mucosa of in-situ (pTis) CRC, and of detectable tumour burden in regional LNs. This is an observational retrospective study of 39 surgically resected in situ CRCs.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aims: Each category of vulvar squamous cell carcinoma (VSCC), human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated and HPV-independent, arises on a specific intra-epithelial precursor: high-grade squamous intra-epithelial lesions (HSIL) and differentiated vulvar intra-epithelial neoplasia (dVIN), respectively. However, a subset of HPV-independent VSCC arises on an intra-epithelial precursor closely mimicking HSIL. We aimed to explore the clinicopathological features of the HPV-independent tumours with HSIL-like lesions and compare them with HPV-independent VSCC with dVIN and HPV-associated tumours with HSIL.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Stage II colorectal cancer (CRC) recurrence remains a clinical problem. Some of these patients are true stage III CRC with a pN0 pathology stage. This large prospective multicentre cohort study aimed at evaluating the diagnostic ability of lymph node (LN) cytology smears to perform the pN stage and compare it with the conventional haematoxylin and eosin (H&E) pathology pN stage.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Penile squamous cell carcinomas (PSCC) are classified by the World Health Organization into two categories based on their relationship with the human papillomavirus (HPV): HPV-associated and HPV-independent. We compared a cohort of PSCC from Mozambique, a sub-Saharan country in southeast Africa with a high prevalence of HPV and HIV infection, and Spain, a country in southwestern Europe with a low prevalence of HPV and HIV, to study the distribution of the etiopathogenic categories of these tumors in both sites. A total of 79 PSCC were included in the study (28 from Mozambique and 51 from Spain).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Two pathways for vulvar squamous cell carcinomas (VSCC) are identified: one linked to HPV and the other not; the study compares cases from Mozambique, which has high HPV and HIV prevalence, to Spain with lower rates.
  • In the study, 97% of VSCC cases in Mozambique were HPV-associated, compared to only 19% in Spain, highlighting a significant difference (P < .001).
  • Additionally, the average age of patients was much younger in Mozambique (45 years) than in Spain (72 years), emphasizing the differing demographics and potential implications for VSCC prevention strategies worldwide.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study focuses on HPV-independent penile squamous cell carcinomas (PSCCs) and their possible origins from an intraepithelial precursor known as differentiated penile intraepithelial neoplasia.
  • Out of 55 surgical PSCC specimens from 2000 to 2021, 36 (65%) were found to be HPV-independent, with 26 of those containing a precursor lesion and 5 of them showing features similar to high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSIL) typically associated with HPV.
  • The research highlights the importance of using p16 immunohistochemical staining to identify these unique lesions in PSCC, which are morphologically similar to HPV-associated HSIL, an aspect not previously detailed
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Penile squamous cell carcinoma (PSCC) is a rare and aggressive type of cancer that can be linked to the human papillomavirus (HPV) or occur without it.
  • Researchers reviewed genetic changes in PSCC, looking at DNA mutations and differences in gene numbers but found that studies varied a lot in methods and results.
  • The study suggests that treating PSCC might work better if different biological pathways are targeted together, and more comprehensive research is needed to understand this cancer better.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Infectious diseases' outbreak investigation requires, by definition, conducting a thorough epidemiological assessment while simultaneously obtaining biological samples for an adequate screening of potential responsible pathogens. Complete autopsies remain the gold-standard approach for cause-of-death evaluation and characterization of emerging diseases. However, for highly transmissible infections with a significant associated lethality, such as COVID-19, complete autopsies are seldom performed due to biosafety challenges, especially in low-resource settings.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Minimally invasive tissue sampling (MITS) is a postmortem procedure that can replace complete autopsy (CA) for analyzing COVID-19 deaths, especially in high-infection settings.
  • The study involved 12 COVID-19 positive deceased individuals and showed that MITS effectively matched CA diagnoses, confirming COVID-19's role in causing lung damage in most cases.
  • MITS is deemed a safe and effective alternative to CA, with all medical personnel testing negative for COVID-19 throughout the study.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The acquisition of driver mutations in non-tumoral cells appears to be very important during the carcinogenesis of adenocarcinoma (ADC). Recent studies suggest that cancer-related mutations may not necessarily be present only in malignant cells, but also in histologically "healthy cells". to demonstrate the presence of or mutations in non-tumoral lung cells in subjects with ADC and negative mutational status.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Vulvar squamous cell carcinoma (VSCC) is a rare malignancy with dual pathogenesis, Human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated and HPV-independent, with a poorly explored molecular landscape. We aimed to summarize the findings of the series analyzing molecular hallmarks of this neoplasm. In January 2021, we conducted a comprehensive literature search using Pubmed Medline and Scopus to identify publications focused on genomic profiling of VSCC.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Postmortem studies are crucial for providing insight into emergent diseases. However, a complete autopsy is frequently not feasible in highly transmissible diseases due to biohazard challenges. Minimally invasive autopsy (MIA) is a needle-based approach aimed at collecting samples of key organs without opening the body, which may be a valid alternative in these cases.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Histoplasmosis is acquired by inhalation of spores of the dimorphic fungus Histoplasma spp. Although this pathogen is distributed worldwide, it is more prevalent in the Americas. However, the real burden of histoplasmosis remains undefined in many endemic regions.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Human papillomavirus (HPV)-independent vulvar squamous cell carcinomas (VSCC) and its precursors frequently harbour mutations. Recently, six p53 immunohistochemical (IHC) patterns have been defined, which have shown strong correlation with mutation status. However, few studies have applied this new six-pattern framework and none of them exhaustively compared p53 IHC positivity and patterns between invasive VSCC and adjacent skin lesion.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Evidence suggests that general practitioners (GPs) fail to diagnose up to half of common mental disorder cases. Yet no previous research has systematically summarized the evidence in the case of anxiety disorders. The aim of this review was to systematically assess and meta-analyze the diagnostic accuracy of GPs' assisted (i.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF