Reduced Expression of SMAD4 Is Associated with Poor Survival in Colon Cancer.

Purpose: SMAD4 loss is associated with the development of metastases and poor prognosis. We evaluated expression of SMAD4 protein and its association with tumor characteristics, including biomarkers and outcome in terms of relapse-free survival and overall survival.

Experimental Design: We used 1,564 stage II/III colon cancer samples from PETACC-3 to evaluate SMAD4 expression by immunohistochemistry.

Human papillomavirus genotype distribution among Cameroonian women with invasive cervical cancer: a retrospective study.

Objectives: We determined the human papillomavirus (HPV) types present in invasive cervical cancer (ICC) of women in Cameroon in order to estimate the potential efficacies of HPV prophylactic vaccines.

Methods: This is a retrospective study using 181 formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded cervical tissue samples of ICC collected from the Institute of Pathology, Gyneco-Obstetric and Pediatric Hospital, Yaoundé, Cameroon. HPV was detected by PCR using modified GP5+/GP6+ (MGP) primers.

Kidney light chain disease in patients with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.

Light chain deposit disease (LCDD) is a rare condition caused by deposition of overproduced monoclonal light chains and has been frequently related to multiple myeloma or lymphocytic disorders. LCDD in association with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has only been described twice in the literature and is thought to result from HIV direct/indirect effects on B and T-cell populations, leading to chronic immune activation with paraprotein production. We report a renal LCDD case diagnosed at autopsy in a severely immunodepressed HIV patient and analyse renal histopathology of 18 HIV patients who had an autopsy in our department between 2000 and 2010.

Astrovirus infection in hospitalized infants with severe combined immunodeficiency after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

Infants with severe primary combined immunodeficiency (SCID) and children post-allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) are extremely susceptible to unusual infections. The lack of generic tools to detect disease-causing viruses among more than 200 potential human viral pathogens represents a major challenge to clinicians and virologists. We investigated retrospectively the causes of a fatal disseminated viral infection with meningoencephalitis in an infant with gamma C-SCID and of chronic gastroenteritis in 2 other infants admitted for HSCT during the same time period.