Plasma Chemokine signature correlates with lung goblet cell hyperplasia in smokers with and without chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Background: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is characterized by lung and systemic inflammation as well as airway goblet cell hyperplasia (GCH). Mucin production is activated in part by stimulation of the epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptor pathway through neutrophils and macrophages. How circulating cytokine levels relate to GCH is not clear.

Loss of e-cadherin and retinoblastoma genes in a case of urothelial carcinoma with scrotal metastasis.

Cutaneous metastases from urologic cancers are very uncommon, usually represent widespread metastatic disease and are associated with a very poor prognosis. They may occur in 1% of patients with urologic malignancies, most commonly from kidney, followed by bladder and prostate tumors. In this report, we describe a case of urothelial carcinoma with metastases to the scrotum treated with platinum based chemotherapy with a durable complete response lasting more than 14 months.

Chronic bronchitis and current smoking are associated with more goblet cells in moderate to severe COPD and smokers without airflow obstruction.

Background: Goblet cell hyperplasia is a classic but variable pathologic finding in COPD. Current literature shows that smoking is a risk factor for chronic bronchitis but the relationship of these clinical features to the presence and magnitude of large airway goblet cell hyperplasia has not been well described. We hypothesized that current smokers and chronic bronchitics would have more goblet cells than nonsmokers or those without chronic bronchitis (CB), independent of airflow obstruction.

Changing pigmentation in a solitary scalp lesion.

A healthy 66 year-old man presented with a complaint of changes within a nodule on the scalp, which had first appeared over 10 years prior. He had no previous history of skin cancer. On physical examination a solitary, asymmetric, purple-black nodule with irregular borders was identified on the right vertex of his scalp.