ABSTRACT
Background: Cervical cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer related deaths among females. It arises from precursor lesions i.e. squamous intraepithelial lesions which are closely associated with infection by HPV. The ERBB2 protooncogene encodes for a cellular transmembrane protein (erb-b2) which has tyrosine kinase activity and has been implicated in the regulation of cellular growth and proliferation in various cancers. Application of monoclonal antibodies against Her2neu has shown higher response and improved survival. The aim of the study was to evaluate the expression of Her2neu in squamous cell carcinoma of cervix in relation to tumor characteristics and to compare the expression with normal control subjects.Methods: It was a cross-sectional analytical study. Paraffin embedded tissue blocks from 30 cases of squamous cell carcinoma were obtained from the archives. Twenty age matched cases of normal cervix removed for lesions other than that related to cervix (like leiomyoma) were taken as control. Tumour characteristics were noted from the records. Her2neu immunostaining was done. Her2neu expression was scored as positive or negative according to the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the College of American Pathologists (ASCO/CAP) scoring system for Her2neu. The Chi-square test was used to compare and find association between the variables. Student t-test was used to compare the variable between cases and controls.Results: Her2neu was positive in 20% and negative in 80% cases of the study group. Her2neu positivity is not associated with size, histological grade and FIGO stage of the tumor. We found that all Her2neu positive cases showed no lymph node metastasis. This association between Her2neu positivity and lymph node status was statistically significant.Conclusions: Her2neu immunoexpression is variable across various categories of squamous cell carcinoma. Her2neu positivity might be negatively associated with lymph node metastasis. However, a more comprehensive study encompassing various factors related to Her2neu overexpression is required to validate these results.
ABSTRACT
Background: The most common cause of postmenopausal bleeding is benign pathology, but likelihood of malignancy must be promptly excluded. As excision of localized lesion has higher disease-free survival rate and lower morbidity as opposed to treatment for regional-stage disease. Commonly employed blind dilatation and curettage followed by histopathology is the current standard. A screening method with high sensitivity and specificity can help to prevent the invasive procedure and can also improve the accuracy of the biopsy. The objective of the present study was to study and compare the diagnostic accuracy of hysteroscopy and transvaginal ultrasonography in diagnosis of postmenopausal bleeding.Methods: 80 female patients with complaints of postmenopausal bleeding were enrolled and followed up for a period of 10 months. Each patient underwent transvaginal ultrasonography and hysteroscopy followed by endometrial biopsy. Result were analyzed to find sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, PPV and NPV taking histopathological diagnosis as gold standard.Results: Authors found that in 40 patients (50%), the cause of post-menopausal bleeding was caused atrophic endometrium followed by endometrial hyperplasia seen in 14 patients (17.5%). Hysteroscopy had higher overall sensitivity, specificity, NPV and accuracy as compared to transvaginal ultrasonography. Hysteroscopy was found to be highly accurate in diagnosing endometrial carcinoma (100%) and endometrial polyps (100%). However, both methods showed similar accuracy (97.5%) in diagnosis of proliferative endometrium and hyperplasia.Conclusions: Hysteroscopy is comparable to histopathology and superior to transvaginal sonography in the diagnosis of intrauterine causes for postmenopausal bleeding, it also offers the possibility of visualizing macroscopic or focal intra-uterine abnormalities.
ABSTRACT
Haemangiomas are tumors of vascular origin. They are frequently observed in soft tissue and skin. Vascular tumors of female pelvic organs are extremely rare. Although, majority of these lesions are detected incidentally, they can mimic various benign and malignant lesions clinically and radiologically. Fallopian tube capillary haemangioma is very rare benign neoplasm. Only one case of capillary haemangioma of fallopian tube has been reported. A 44-year-old female with menorrhagia, underwent hysterectomy with bilateral salpingoopherectomy. Both the fallopian tubes were grossly unremarkable. Microscopic examination revealed a well circumscribed vascular neoplasm, consistent with capillary haemangioma, CD34 immunostaining highlighted the vascular endothelium. Although benign in nature, haemangioma of the fallopian tube can present with complications. Rupture of the haemangioma can be lethal when present with hemoperitoneum.