The aim of the present study was to investigate whether biomarkers improve the prediction of recurrence-free, disease-specific, and overall survival in patients with clinically localized prostate cancer. A tissue microarray was constructed from prostate specimens of 278 patients who underwent open radical retropubic prostatectomy for clinically localized prostate cancer. For immunohistochemical studies, antibodies were used against matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-2, MMP-3, MMP-7, MMP-9, MMP-13, and MMP-19, as well as against vascular endothelial growth factor, hypoxia-induced factor 1α, basic fibroblast growth factor, and cluster of differentiation 31.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAims: To assess the prognostic significance of apoptosis related markers in bladder cancer.
Methods: A tissue microarray containing 179 bladder carcinomas from cystectomy specimens was analysed immunohistochemically for active caspase-3, single-stranded DNA (ssDNA), p53, Bcl-2, Bax, and COX-2, in correlation to clinicopathological factors.
Results: Active caspase-3, ssDNA, p53, Bax and COX-2 were more frequently observed among high grade and higher stage (> or =T2) carcinomas compared with low grade and lower stage (T1) tumours.
Aims: To analyse tumour characteristics and the prognostic significance of prostatic cancers with extranodal extension of lymph node metastases (ENE) in 102 node-positive, hormone treatment-naive patients undergoing radical prostatectomy and extended lymphadenectomy.
Methods And Results: The median number of nodes examined per patient was 21 (range 9-68), and the median follow-up time was 92 months (range 12-191). ENE was observed in 71 patients (70%).
Bone morphogenic protein 7 (BMP7) counteracts physiological epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, a process that is indicative of epithelial plasticity. Because epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition is involved in cancer, we investigated whether BMP7 plays a role in prostate cancer growth and metastasis. BMP7 expression in laser-microdissected primary human prostate cancer tissue was strongly down-regulated compared with normal prostate luminal epithelium.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this report, a 55-year-old Caucasian women with an arachnoid cyst of the thoracic spine is presented. This cyst remained undiagnosed because of the nonspecific nature of her symptoms over approximately three months. Only when she started to complain of ataxia, a posterior fluid collection compressing the spinal cord was found in MRI.
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