Histomorphometric diagnostics of renal osteopathy in chronic dialysis patients at high risk of cardiovascular disease.

Unlabelled: Chronic kidney disease-mineral and bone disorder (CKD-MBD) ranks among clinically and pathogenetically significant complications in patients with CKD. Numerous factors are involved in its development, and histomorphometric analysis of the bone tissue is still necessary for accurate diagnosis.

Methods: The open, pilot, prospective study aimed at performing a comprehensive histomorphometric bone analysis in 26 dialysis patients and assessing the relationships of different types of CKD-MBD to selected parameters of calcium and phosphate metabolism, densitometry, activity of parathyroid glands, presence of diabetes mellitus, and duration of dialysis treatment.

Tumour suppressor PTEN regulates cell cycle and protein kinase B/Akt pathway in breast cancer cells.

Background: PTEN is a tumour suppressor protein with phosphatase activity frequently altered in several types of human cancers.

Materials And Methods: The PTEN effect was studied on the cell cycle (by bromdeoxyuridine incorporation) and on the phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase/protein kinase B/Akt (PI3-K/PKB/Akt) pathway regulating proteins (by immunocytochemical, Western blot analysis and kinase assay) upon transfection of wild-type PTEN and its mutant H123Y in breast cancer cell lines.

Results: The expression of the important proteins in the MCF-7 and BT-549 cells was characterised and the cellular localisation of PTEN was analysed.

Expression of the hMLH1 and hMSH2 proteins in normal tissues: relationship to cancer predisposition in hereditary non-polyposis colon cancer.

The majority of tumours in patients with hereditary non-polyposis colon cancer (HNPCC) occur in large intestine and endometrium; also, other tissues are at increased risk. We studied expression of hMLH1 and hMSH2 proteins in 148 normal samples of various tissues from non-HNPCC patients and in 14 normal colon tissues from HNPCC patients. Immunohistochemical technique was used.

Ulcerating Warthin's tumour.

We report the clinical course of a 63-year-old man with a Warthin's tumour in the right parotid gland that had ulcerated the overlying skin. The ulceration may have been due to the malignant transformation of either the epithelial or lymphoid component or, as in very rare cases, it may have resulted from inflammatory alterations crossing the capsule of the tumour into the adjacent parotid parenchyma and surrounding skin. Only two similar cases of the latter have been reported to date.