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Background: Cell cannibalism (cytophagocytosis) is defined as a tumor cell within a tumor cell, such that smaller tumor cells are found in the cytoplasm of larger tumor cells with crescent shaped nuclei. Aims and Objectives were to study the cytomorphological characters of cell cannibalism in primary and metastatic breast cancer, to correlate the histologic type and grade of tumors with positive rate of cannibalism and to study the role of Cannibalism as an independent prognostic factor in breast cancer.Methods: The study was conducted during the period of July 2003 to June 2005 in the Department of Surgery and Pathology, JNMCH, Aligarh. A total of 42 cases were included in the study. A minimum of 3 FNAC smears per case were assessed for cytophagocytosis. Presence of metastasis was also noted to establish the cytological grade and aggressiveness of the tumor.Results: Out of 42 cases, significant cannibalistic activity was noted in 30 (71.42%) cases. All grade III (33.4%) breast tumors were found positive for cytophagocytosis (4.28/smear), while the rate was much lower (2.33/smear) in grade II and (1.63/smear) in grade I tumors. LN metastasis was confirmed by histopathological examination in all high grade tumors showing significant cannibalistic activity.Conclusions: Cannibalism in breast carcinoma is an indicator of both the anaplastic grade and invasiveness. The rate of cytophagocytosis may have a prognostic significance.
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Objective To evaluate the effect of curcumin on phagocytic function of macrophages after the stimulation with exosomes from patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).Methods From February 2016 to November 2017,18 patients with active SLE and 18 healthy controls were enrolled from Guangzhou Institute of Dermatology and Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital,Sun Yat-sen University,and serum exosomes were extracted from these subjects.The exosomes from the healthy controls (CON-exo) and SLE patients (SLE-exo) as well as different concentrations (1,5,20 μmol/L) of curcumin were used alone or in combination to stimulate the acute monocytic leukemia cell line THP-1-derived macrophages.After coincubation of the stimulated macrophages with pHrodo TM Red indicator,flow cytometry was performed to determine the average fluorescence intensity,immunofluorescence staining to calculate the proportion of pHrodo TM Red-positive macrophages,and then the phagocytic activity of macrophages was assessed.Western blot analysis was conducted to determine the protein expression of CD 14 in the stimulated macrophages.Statistical analysis was carried out by Student-t test for comparison between two groups,oneway analysis of variance for comparison among several groups,and least significant difference (LSD)-t test for multiple comparisons.Results Flow cytometry showed that there were significant differences in the relative fluorescence intensity of macrophages among the CON-exo group,CON-exo + 20 μmol/L curcumin group,SLE-exo group and SLE-exo + 20 μmol/L curcumin group (101.3％ ± 14.05％,94.27％ ± 14.13％,41.02％ ± 9.54％ and 87.33％ ± 15.01％,respectively;F =10.81,P ＜ 0.01),and immunofluorescence staining revealed that the proportion of pHrodo Red-positive macrophages significantly differed among the above 4 groups (82.16％ ± 5.20％,81.33％ ± 4.51％,54.20％ ± 9.31％ and 71.23％ ± 5.43％ respectively;F =12.42,P ＜ 0.01).The fluorescence intensity of macrophages and proportion of pHrodo-positive macrophages were both significantly lower in the SLE-exo group than in the CON-exo group (t =5.26,5.35 respectively,both P ＜ 0.01) and SLE-exo + 20 μmol/L curcumin group (t =3.97,3.26 respectively,both P ＜ 0.05).Western blot analysis showed that there were significant differences in the protein expression ofCD14 among the CON-exo group,SLE-exo group,SLE-exo + 1 μmol/L curcumin group,SLE-exo + 5 μmol/L curcumin group and SLE-exo + 20 μmol/L curcumin group (96.33％ ± 13.65％,30.67％ ± 5.86％,45.24％ ± 8.89％,72.81％ ± 6.62％ and 90.67％ ± 12.66％ respectively;F =24.57,P ＜ 0.01).The protein expression of CD14 was significantly lower in the SLE-exo group than in the CON-exo group(t =8.06,P ＜ 0.001),SLEexo + 5 μmol/L curcumin group and SLE-exo + 20 μmol/L curcumin group(t =5.08,7.38,both P ＜ 0.001),and the CD14 level showed an increasing trend along with the increase in the concentration of curcumin.Conclusion Exosomes from SLE patients markedly inhibit the phagocytosis of macrophages,while curcumin can reverse this inhibitory effect.
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Pulmonary giant cell carcinoma is one of the most highly malignant neoplasms of the lung. Although mixed malignant glandular or squamous components may be associated with a giant cell carcinoma, it is a distinct clinical and morphologic entity. We reviewed cytologic presentations of 6 cases of pulmonary giant cell carcinoma. Cytologically, the single most characteristic feature of giant cell carcinoma was an extremely large, bizarre cancer cell engulfing numerous leukocytes. The nuclei of these cells showed occasional prominent nucleoli, and the cytoplasm was abundant. Giant cells were also seen in other types of pulmonary carcinoma, but the giant cells of this neoplasm could be differentiated from those encountered in undifferentiated large cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma by the abundant cytoplasm, the presence of markedly enlarged nuclei, prominent nucleoli, and an significant degree of phagocytosis, In conclusion, precise diagnosis and classification of lung cancer is imperative because of proved correlation between cell type and prognosis.