Upregulation of glucosylceramide synthase protein in papillary thyroid carcinoma / 中华医学杂志(英文版)

<p><b>BACKGROUND</b>Glucosylceramide synthase (GCS) can reduce ceramide levels and help cells escape ceramide-induced apoptosis, thus leading to multidrug resistance (MDR). However, its expression and clinical significance in thyroid neoplasms still remain unclear. We aimed to elucidate the expression of GCS and explore its correlation with the clinicopathological characteristics in papillary thyroid carcinomas (PTCs).</p><p><b>METHODS</b>We retrospectively investigated GCS protein expression level in tissue specimens obtained from 108 consecutive PTC patients by immunohistochemistry and Western blotting.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>GCS was weakly positive or negative in normal follicular cells, but it was frequently overexpressed in PTC cells. GCS overexpression was associated with primary tumor size, local infiltration, lymph node metastasis, and local recurrence, but not associated with gender, age, pathological variants, tumor multifocality, tumor stage or distant metastasis. Western blotting also showed that GCS protein levels were much higher in PTCs' tissues than in normal thyroid tissues.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>GCS was upregulated in PTCs and might be an independent factor affecting prognosis.</p>

Littoral cell angioma of the spleen: report of three cases and a review of the literature / 中华医学杂志(英文版)

Littoral cell angioma is a recently described rare vascular tumor of the spleen. The clinical course of this benign tumor is asymptomatic in most patients. Herein, we described three patients with littoral cell angioma detected during physical examination. A brief discussion and review of a handful of cases of splenic littoral cell angioma, which have been previously reported in the English language literature, are performed in this paper.