Two Thymomas of Different Histological Subtypes Arising in a Giant Thymolipoma: Case Report and Review of the Literature.

Thymolipoma is a rare benign tumor of the anterior mediastinum. Only a few reports describing thymoma arising within a thymolipoma have been documented in the literature. We report herein a detailed description of thymolipoma giving rise to 2 thymomas of different histological subtypes.

Pulmonary tumor embolism secondary to soft tissue and bone sarcomas: a case report and literature review.

Background: Tumor embolisms (TE) are an underappreciated source of pulmonary embolisms in sarcoma. Most evidence in the literature is limited to case reports and none have described the presence of TE secondary to myxofibrosarcoma. We report the first case of myxofibrosarcoma TE and perform a review of the literature for TE secondary to bone and soft tissue sarcomas (STS).

Thymoma and parathyroid adenoma: false-positive imaging and intriguing laboratory test results.

Importance: Parathyroid hormone (PTH)-secreting thymomas are an exceedingly rare entity. A PTH-secreting thymoma was discovered in the workup of a patient with primary hyperparathyroidism. A concomitant parathyroid adenoma was removed from the same patient.

Advanced malignant mesothelioma mimicking acute contained thoracic aortic rupture.

In the emergent setting, patients presenting with acute interscapular pain along with haemodynamic instability require immediate evaluation. We describe the case of a patient in which computed tomographic scanning demonstrated a large hyper-dense, periaortic collection on post-contrast imaging. Urgent endovascular repair was performed for descending thoracic aortic rupture.

Predictors of anastomotic leak after esophagectomy: an analysis of the society of thoracic surgeons general thoracic database.

Background: Anastomotic leak is an important cause of morbidity and mortality after esophagectomy. Few studies have targeted risk factors for the development of leak after esophagectomy. The purpose of this study is to use The Society of Thoracic Surgeons Database to identify variables associated with leak after esophagectomy.

Giant asymptomatic primary esophageal schwannoma.

Primary esophageal schwannomas are uncommon. We describe a case of a large asymptomatic primary esophageal schwannoma in a 65-year-old patient. Computed tomography and positron emission tomography revealed an (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose-avid 11-cm mass arising from the esophagus.

Fusion positron emission/computed tomography underestimates the presence of hilar nodal metastases in patients with resected non-small cell lung cancer.

Background: The 5-year survival for patients with resected stage II (N1) non-small cell lung cancer ranges from 40% to 55%. No data exist addressing the benefit of neoadjuvant therapy for patients with stage II disease. This is largely in part due to the lack of a reliable, minimally invasive method to assess hilar nodes.

Extended transsternal thymectomy.

The two primary indications for thymectomy are the treatments of patients with thymoma and patients with myasthenia gravis. Several different methods have been described to remove the thymus gland, including transcervical-transsternal "maximal" thymectomy, extended transsternal thymectomy, classic transsternal thymectomy, (extended) transcervical thymectomy, and video-assisted thoracoscopic thymectomy. The purpose of this article is to focus on the technical aspects of performing an extended transsternal thymectomy and the published results of extended transsternal thymectomy as compared with other techniques available.

A primary xenograft model of small-cell lung cancer reveals irreversible changes in gene expression imposed by culture in vitro.

Traditional approaches to the preclinical investigation of cancer therapies rely on the use of established cell lines maintained in serum-based growth media. This is particularly true of small-cell lung cancer (SCLC), where surgically resected tissue is rarely available. Recent attention has focused on the need for better models that preserve the integrity of cancer stem cell populations, as well as three-dimensional tumor-stromal interactions.

Therapeutic efficacy of ABT-737, a selective inhibitor of BCL-2, in small cell lung cancer.

Bcl-2 is a central regulator of cell survival that is overexpressed in the majority of small cell lung cancers (SCLC) and contributes to both malignant transformation and therapeutic resistance. We compared primary SCLC xenografts prepared from de novo human tumors with standard cell line-based xenografts in the evaluation of a novel and highly potent small molecule inhibitor of Bcl-2, ABT-737. ABT-737 induced dramatic regressions in tumors derived from some SCLC cell lines.

A stem cell-like chromatin pattern may predispose tumor suppressor genes to DNA hypermethylation and heritable silencing.

Adult cancers may derive from stem or early progenitor cells. Epigenetic modulation of gene expression is essential for normal function of these early cells but is highly abnormal in cancers, which often show aberrant promoter CpG island hypermethylation and transcriptional silencing of tumor suppressor genes and pro-differentiation factors. We find that for such genes, both normal and malignant embryonic cells generally lack the hypermethylation of DNA found in adult cancers.

Developmental signalling pathways in lung cancer.

Hedgehog, Notch and Wnt signalling are all essential for axial patterning and progenitor cell fates in signalling pathways conserved from flies to humans. Aberrant activation of these pathways is observed in a wide variety of cancers, suggesting that these embryonic signalling pathways contribute in a fundamental way to the evolution and maintenance of a malignant phenotype. Because all three of these pathways participate in lung development, recent studies have begun to explore the connection between lung development, airway epithelial repair and lung cancer.