A case of advanced mycosis fungoides with comprehensive skin and visceral organs metastasis: sensitive to chemical and biological therapy

Mycosis fungoides is a common cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, which is usually characterized by chronic, indolence progression, with absence of typical symptoms in early stage, metastasis to lymph nodes, bone marrow and visceral organs in later stage and ultimately progression to systemic lymphoma. It can result in secondary skin infection which is a frequent cause of death. At present, no curative therapy existed. Therapeutic purpose is to induce remission, reduce tumor burden and protect immune function of patients. A case of patient with advanced severe mycosis fungoides receiving CHOP plus interferon α-2a was reported here, with disease-free survival of 7 months and overall survival of over 17.0 months, and current status as well as developments of mycosis fungoides were briefly introduced.

Correlation between expression of forkhead box M1 (FOXM1) and clinicopathological features and prognosis in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) / 中华肿瘤杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the expression of forkhead box M1 (FOXM1) and its correlation with clinicopathological features and prognosis in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).</p><p><b>METHODS</b>The expression of FOXM1 in 68 cases of NSCLC was detected by immunohistochemistry. The FOXM1 expression in 6 tumor tissues (3 cases with negative and 3 cases with positive expression of FOXM1) was analyzed by Western blotting to confirm the immunohistochemical results. The correlation of the expression of FOXM1 with clinicopathalogical features and overall survival of the NSCLC patients was analyzed.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The expression of FOXM1 protein was detected in the nuclei or cytoplasms of the tumor cells. The positive expression rate of FOXM1 was 36.8% (25/68). Western blotting confirmed the immunohistochemical results. The expression level of FOXM1 in advanced stage cancer was significantly higher than that in early stage NSCLC (P = 0.001). The median OS was 23.0 months in patients with negative expression of FOXM1 and 13.0 months in those with positive expression (P = 0.001). Univariate analysis revealed that histological grade, lymph nodes status, TNM stage and FOXM1 expression were significantly associated with prognosis in the NSCLC patients (P < 0.05). The Cox multivariate analysis demonstrated that lymph nodes status, TNM stage and FOXM1 expression were independent poor prognostic factors (P < 0.05).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The expression status of FOXM1 in NSCLC is an independent prognostic factor and negatively correlated with prognosis.</p>

Identification of plasma microRNA-21 as a biomarker for early detection and chemosensitivity of non-small cell lung cancer / 癌症

Studies have shown cell-free microRNA (miRNA) circulating in the serum and plasma with specific expression in cancer, indicating the potential of using miRNAs as biomarkers for cancer diagnosis and therapy. This study was to investigate whether plasma miRNA-21 (miR-21) can be used as a biomarker for the early detection of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and to explore its association with clinicopathologic features and sensitivity to platinum-based chemotherapy. We used real-time RT-PCR to investigate the expression of miR-21 in the plasma of 63 NSCLC patients and 30 healthy controls and correlated the findings with early diagnosis, pathologic parameters, and treatment. Thirty-five patients (stages IIIB and IV) were evaluable for chemotherapeutic responses: 11 had partial response (PR); 24 had stable and progressive disease (SD+ PD). Plasma miR-21 was significantly higher in NSCLC patients than in age- and sex-matched controls (P < 0.001). miR-21 was related to TNM stage (P < 0.001), but not related to age, sex, smoking status, histological classification, lymph node status, and metastasis (all P > 0.05). This marker yielded a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve area of 0.775 (95% CI: 0.681- 0.868) with 76.2% sensitivity and 70.0% specificity. Importantly, miR-21 plasma levels in PR samples were several folds lower than that in SD plus PD samples (P = 0.049), and were close to that in healthy controls (P = 0.130). Plasma miR-21 can serve as a circulating tumor biomarker for the early diagnosis of NSCLC and is related to the sensitivity to platinum-base chemotherapy.

Secondary acute myeloid leukemia complicated after treatment of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma / 中国实验血液学杂志

The aim of this study was to investigate the mechanism, susceptibility, (18)F-FDG positron emission computerized tomography ((18)F-FDG PET/CT) features and the treatment of therapy-related acute myeloid leukemia. One patient with NHL was affected with t-MDS after treatment and then progressed to t-AML. The clinical data including bone marrow cell morphology, flow cytometry, karyotype and PET/CT features were analyzed. The results showed that the primary treatment for NHL refers to varieties of cytotoxic drug such as cyclophosphamide-hydroxydaunomycin-oncovin-prednisone (CHOP) chemotherapy. The interval time from the chemotherapy of NHL to the occurrence of t-MDS was 105 months and t-MDS progressed to AML-M(2) in 2 months. Karyotype analysis results of t-MDS and t-AML were normal. (18)F-FDG PET indicated that the FDG uptake in the bone raised diffusely. The patient showed complete response after second-line therapy (CAG regiments). In conclusion, the occurrence of t-AML/MDS may be associated with the application of the cytotoxic chemotherapeutics. (18)F-FDG PET may be an indicator predicting the transformation of t-MDS to t-AML.