Skin and thigh muscle metastasis from papillary thyroid cancer.

A 44-year-old man with total thyroidectomy for papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) performed at the age of 38 years was referred for mediastinal metastases demonstrated on chest radiograph and high serum thyroglobulin (Tg 328 ng/ml). Computed tomography revealed mediastinal lymph node enlargement with left bronchial compression and reduction of bronchial diameter, as well as two metastases in the left lung. Bronchoscopic biopsy findings showed a poorly-differentiated PTC, while a whole body scan after 131-Iodine therapy demonstrated uptake in the right subclavicular region.

Primary carcinoid tumour of the kidney. A case report and review of the literature.

Carcinoid tumours are known to occur frequently in the gastrointestinal and respiratory tracts. A primary carcinoid tumour of the kidney is an extremely rare entity and only 40 cases have been reported in the literature. As a consequence, very little is known about its real histogenesis, and its prognosis and clinicopathological patterns are not precisely defined.

Immunohistochemical study of apoptosis markers and involvement of chemokine CXCR4 in skin Merkel cell carcinoma.

Background: Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a rare, aggressive cancer of the skin that mainly affects elderly patients. Because of its rarity, there is no established treatment or proven markers to guide therapy or prognosis. Immunohistochemical expression of apoptosis proteins is considered a useful marker of both malignancy and tumour progression.

Detection of Dirofilaria (Nochtiella) repens DNA by polymerase chain reaction in embedded paraffin tissues from two human pulmonary locations.

We here report two new cases of human pulmonary dirofilariasis in men aged 62 and 64 from Northern and Central Italy, respectively. Both were asymptomatic and the infections were discovered incidentally when chest radiographs taken for another reason revealed the presence of a coin lesion. The initial clinical diagnosis was oriented towards a lung tumour, and an excisional lung biopsy after thoracotomy was necessary for the final diagnosis.

Recurrent epithelioid angiosarcoma of the scalp simulating melanoma. A 10-year follow-up.

We present a case of an intriguing mesenchymal neoplasm of the scalp that recurred several times over 10 years before a final diagnosis was possible. The case was sent for expert opinions to various international dermatopathological authorities and was, for a long time, unanimously interpreted as malignant melanoma. This diagnosis was supported by immunohistochemical examinations demonstrating S-100 positivity.