Publications by authors named "Samia Arifi"

Article Synopsis
  • - Sarcomas are a diverse group of cancers (over 100 types) that originate from mesenchymal tissue and make up about 1% of adult cancers; treatment typically involves surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, especially for advanced cases.
  • - The outlook for patients with metastatic sarcomas is poor, creating a need for new treatments, with immunotherapy showing promise but still needing further research for specific types.
  • - Various immunotherapy methods, such as antibodies and cancer vaccines, are being tested in clinical trials for sarcomas, but results have been inconsistent and their practical use in treatment is still limited.
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Background: Soft tissue sarcomas (STS) are a heterogeneous group of tumors. For adequate therapeutic management, an accurate diagnosis is necessary. In Morocco, the diagnosis is essentially based on the morphological and immunohistochemical study.

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Giant cell tumors (GCTs) are locally aggressive but rarely malignant bone neoplasms that uncommonly involve the skull. In this report, we describe a tumor of the sphenoid sinus. A 51-year-old female was presented with headache, and bilateral decreased visual acuity, CT scan, and brain MRI revealed an infra-sellar enhancing tumor expanding to the sellar and supra-sellar region which proved to be a GCT.

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Clear cell carcinoma is a rare minor salivary gland neoplasm. Its occurrence in the nasopharynx is uncommon. A limited number of cases are reported in the literature.

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Background: Rectal gastrointestinal stromal tumors are rare and optimal treatment is yet to be defined. The aim of this report is to highlight the possible aggressive behavior of four cases of rectal GISTs treated with neoadjuvant imatinib in a tertiary care medical hospital.

Methods: Four cases of rectal GISTs were retrospectively reviewed for patients demographics, clinical presentation, histology, and imatinib therapy.

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Article Synopsis
  • * A case study is presented involving a 19-year-old patient who experienced chest pain, leading to the discovery of a right mediastinal mass with pleural effusion and swollen lymph nodes, diagnosed as a yolk sac non-seminomatous germ cell tumor.
  • * Following biopsy results showing elevated alpha-fetoprotein levels, the patient underwent 4 cycles of chemotherapy with etoposide, ifosfamide, and platinum salts, followed by complete surgical removal
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Aggressive angiomyxoma is a rare benign and locally invasive mesenchymal tumor that is found most frequently in women at reproductive age. We report typical CT and MRI appearances of a 36-year old young woman with an aggressive angiomyxoma of the pelvis and perineum that was proved by ultrasound guided biopsy.This study describe the imaging features of theses tumors,wich may help to approch the diagnosis by their distinctive imaging with high signal intensity on T2-weighted image related to the myxomatous stroma and their characteristic of swirling or layering internal pattern after intravenous gadolinium contrast administration.

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Article Synopsis
  • Nearly half of soft tissue sarcoma cases occur in patients over 65, presenting complex treatment challenges without specific guidelines.
  • Current treatments, particularly surgery, are effective but must be balanced with potential side effects and quality of life considerations.
  • Future research is needed to refine treatment strategies for older patients, with a focus on minimizing toxicity and exploring new therapeutic options.
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Primary malignant mesothelioma of the ovary (PMMO) is an extremely rare tumor which can develop from mesothelial cells. This neoplasia is caused predominantly by exposure to asbestos or other cancer-causing agents. Preoperative assessment, based on computed tomography (CT) scan, magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography, is essential for cancer staging.

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Soft-tissue sarcomas are malignant tumors that require good management within specialized centers. Our study aims to assess the benefit of handling these kinds of tumors using the Multidisciplinary Meeting (MDM) approach. The current paper details this approach through a prospective study that has lasted for 42 months in the HASSAN II University Hospital Center, Fez, Morocco.

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Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is a potential curative disease at its localized stage, by the use of multimodal treatment including surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. While the metastatic stage is considered incurable and is characterized by poor prognosis. Conventional cytotoxic chemotherapy in addition to cetuximab were the only available systemic treatment with limited efficacy and modest median overall survival barely crossing the 1 year limit.

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Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is characterized by the absence of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). It accounts for 15%-20% of all breast cancers and is associated with an aggressive evolution and poor outcomes with the majority of recurrences and deaths occurring in the first 5 years. Chemotherapy remains the mainstay of treatment in the absence of effective targets, but the good understanding of immune tumor microenvironment, the identification of immune-related targets, and the role of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) in TNBC has allowed to develop promising immunotherapeutic strategies for this unique subset of breast cancer.

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Background: Moroccan incidence of cancer is increasing with the lengthening of life expectancy. Data regarding elderly Moroccan cancer patients are lacking. In the context of our project aiming to develop an adapted version of the Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment CGA to the Moroccan population, we launched the first Moroccan multicenter transverse study to explore the characteristics of elderly Moroccan cancer patients.

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Article Synopsis
  • Breast cancer affects around 25% of women of reproductive age globally, and chemotherapy, while necessary, may lead to fertility issues for these young patients.
  • A study analyzed 100 premenopausal breast cancer patients and found an 82% incidence of chemotherapy-induced amenorrhea (CIA), with only 66.7% eventually regaining their menstrual cycles.
  • The research identified patient age at diagnosis as a significant risk factor for CIA, highlighting the importance of considering fertility preservation methods for affected patients.
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The world is facing the pandemic linked to COVID-19 virus infection that has rapidly spread worldwide, and severe complications have been reported to occur in around a third of patients. To date, there is no approved vaccine or specific therapy against COVID-19, but many trials are ongoing with some of them showing promising results. It has been shown recently that patients with cancer are at high risk of infection and they are more susceptible to develop severe events such as the necessity of invasive ventilation and death.

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Dermatomyositis is a systemic idiopathic disease characterized by a combination of both muscle and skin symptoms. It is a paraneoplastic dermatosis. Its association with rectal cancer has been rarely described in the literature.

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Darier and Ferrand dermatofibrosarcoma (DFS) is a rare skin tumor characterized by its local aggressiveness and a high risk of recurrences. Prognosis depends essentially on the quality of treatment. Complete response in Darier and Ferrand dermatofibrosarcoma with healthy margins, initially judged inoperable after 1 year of neoadjuvant imatinib-based treatment, has been rarely described in literature.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) are the most common tumors in the digestive system, but there are no clear biological markers to predict their behavior; this study looked at the MDM2 oncoprotein as a potential marker.
  • - In a study of 35 GIST cases from a Moroccan hospital, researchers assessed MDM2 levels using immunohistochemistry, finding that 40% of tumors tested positive for MDM2, mostly among high-risk and metastatic cases.
  • - The findings indicate that positive MDM2 expression is linked to worse outcomes in GIST, particularly in terms of metastasis, suggesting it could serve as a negative prognostic indicator.
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Small cell neuroendocrine carcinomas of the gynecologic tract are unusual, accounting for only 2% of the cervical cancers. Given the rarity of these tumors and the absence of randomized trials, their diagnosis and treatment programmes are difficult and are essentially based on those of neuroendocrine tumors of the lung. As in the case of the neuroendocrine tumors of the lung and despite multimodal treatment they are associated with a poor prognosis.

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Parotid metastasis from carcinoma of the breast is very rare, only a few cases have been reported in the literature. We here report the case of a 43-year old patient treated for right breast cancer in whom left parotid metastasis (confirmed histologically) occurred two years after the end of the treatment.

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Proximal epithelioid sarcoma (PES) originating from the pleura is a clinical entity rarely reported in the literature. We report the case of a young patient with immediately metastatic proximal epithelioid sarcoma (PES) treated at the Department of Medical Oncology, Fes. Treatment consisted of chemotherapy based on doxorubicin and ifosfamide.

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Dermatomyositis (DM) is an inflammatory disease of unknown origin that manifests as a myopathy associated with typical skin lesions. Association between DM and cancer is frequent (from 18% to 32% according to case series). It was described for the first time by Stertz in 1916 in association with gastric cancer.

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Colorectal primary signet ring cell carcinoma (SRCC) is a rare entity accounting for nearly 1% of all colorectal carcinomas. It is an independent prognostic factor associated with less favorable outcome. This aggressiveness is mainly due to the intrinsic biology of these tumors.

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Primary hepatoid carcinoma of the ovary (HCO) is a very rare type of high-grade invasive malignant ovarian tumor with hepatic differentiation and production of α-fetoprotein (AFP). We describe a 78-year-old Moroccan woman who presented to our hospital with abdominal distension and purplish nodules infiltrating the para umbilical skin with weight loss and impairment of her performance status. Excisional biopsy of the para umbilical nodule revealed a cutaneous localization of moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma and pelvic ultrasonography noted the presence of a tumoral right adnexal mass.

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