Diagnostic work-up of gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors

Neuroendocrine tumors are a heterogeneous group of malignancies that present a diagnostic challenge. The majority of patients (more than 60%) present with metastatic disease at diagnosis. The diagnosis is based on histopathology, imaging, and circulating biomarkers. The histopathology should contain specific neuroendocrine markers such as chromogranin A, synaptophysin, and neuron-specific enolase and also an estimate of the proliferation by Ki-67 (MIB1). Standard imaging procedures consist of computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging together with somatostatin receptor scintigraphy. 68Ga-DOTA-octreotate scans will in the future replace somatostatin receptor scintigraphy because they have higher specificity and sensitivity. Other positron imaging tomographic scanning tracers that will come into clinical use are 18F-DOPA and 11C-5HTP. Neuroendocrine tumors secrete many different peptides and amines that can be used as circulating biomarkers. The most useful general marker is chromogranin A, which is both a diagnostic and prognostic marker in most neuroendocrine tumors. However, there is still a need for improved biomarkers for early detection and follow-up of patients during treatment. In addition, molecular imaging can be further developed for both detection and evaluation of treatment.

Gastrointestinal lymphomas: Pattern of distribution and histological subtypes: 10 years experience in a tertiary centre in South India.

Background and Aim: Gastrointestinal tract (GIT) is one of the major sites of extra-nodal lymphomas constituting 10-15% of all non-Hodgkin's lymphoma cases and about 30-40% of extra-nodal lymphomas. Considerable variation exists in the literature with respect to incidence of the various histological subtypes and sites of involvement. This study was undertaken to ascertain the anatomic distribution, histological subtypes and sites of all GIT lymphomas presenting to a tertiary referral hospital in southern India. Materials and Methods: The histological material of 361 patients over a period of 10 years (2001-2010), with histopathological diagnosis of lymphoma involving the GIT (both primary and secondary), was analyzed retrospectively. All lymphomas were reclassified according to the World Health Organization 2008 classification. Results: These 361 cases include 336 primary and 25 cases of lymphomas, where the involvement was secondary. Primary lymphomas consisted of 267 males (79.64%) and 68 females (20.24%) with a male:female ratio of 3.93:1. The mean age was 45 years (range 3-88). Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) was the commonest subtype (222 cases; 66.71%), followed by low-grade marginal zone lymphoma of the mucosa associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) type (34 cases; 10.12%) and Burkitt's lymphoma (35 cases; 10.48%). The commonest site was stomach (180 cases; 53.57%), followed by small intestine (79 cases; 23.51%) and large intestine (68 cases; 20.23%), respectively. There were some uncommon types of GIT lymphomas documented during the study. Conclusion: In this largest retrospective single centre study from India, we establish that the pattern of distribution of primary GIT lymphomas (PGLs) in India is similar to the western literature in that the stomach is the commonest site of PGL and DLBCL is the commonest histological subtype. Immunoproliferative small intestinal disease cases were seen in this study, which is uncommon in the west.

Tratamento cirúrgico do linfoma primário do colo / Surgical treatment of primary colon lymphoma

Objetivo: analisar os resultados do tratamento cirúrgico curativo dos linfomas cólicos primários. Casuística: durante o período de 1968 até 1994, seis casos de linfomas cólicos primários foram operados com intençäo curativa. Métodos: Os critérios de Dawson foram utilizados para caracterizar o linfoma cólico como primário. No estadiamento do tumor, utilizou-se a classificaçäo de Ann Arbor para linfomas gastrintestinais modificada por Musshoff e Schmidt-Vollmer. A classificaçäo histológica utilizada foi o sistema Working Formulation Group. Resultados: dois doentes eram do sexo masculino e quatro do feminino. A média da idade foi de 50,1 anos. Em dois casos, o diagnóstico foi realizado no pré-operatório. O ceco foi envolvido em quatro doentes, a válvula ileocecal em um e o cólon ascendente em outro. Todos os doentes foram submetidos à colectomia direita radical com linfadenectomia regional. Näo houve óbito operatório. A média de sobrevivência foi de 16,5 meses e apenas um enfermo está vivo há 17 anos, sem doença ativa. Conclusöes: recomenda-se a ressecçäo da lesäo para estadiamento mais acurado, oportunidade de cura, prevençäo de complicaçöes e alívio dos sintomas. A radioterapia e/ou quimioterapia säo utilizadas para o controle da doença residual microscópica na lesäo localmente avançada, e na doença disseminada ou irressecável

Tipos histológicos de cáncer gástrico de acuerdo a la clasificación de Lauren en el Hospital Nacional Cayetano Heredia / Histological types og gastric cancer according to Layren classification in Cayetano Heredia National Hospital

Las muestras histológicas de estómago, obtenidas de 148 pacientes del Hospital Nacional Cayetano Heredia, atendidos entre enero de 1988 y diciembre de 1994, con el diagnóstico de cancer gástrico, fueron revisadas con la finalidad de clasificarlas según los criterios propuestos por Lauren. De acuerdo a esta clasificación el tipo intestinal fue el más frecuente con 99 pacientes (67 por ciento), seguido del tipo difuso con 40 pacientes (27 por ciento). Se consideró además un grupo catalogado como mixto y no clasificado con 9 pacientes (6 por ciento). Hubo predominio del sexo femenino para el tipo difuso y del sexo masculino para el tipo intestinal. Se demostró con validez estadística que a menor edad el tipo histológico que predomina es el difuso y a menor edad es el tipo intestinal. En nuestra serie no hubo diferencia estadísticamente significativa para la localización según el tipo histológico, sin embargo resalta que en los tres grupos el compromiso simultáneo de dos regiones gástricas es muy frecuente, principalmente en antro y cuerpo

Linfomas del tracto gastrointestinal: una enfermedad neoplásica del subdesarrollo / Gastrointestinal lymphomas: malignant disease of under development

Cuatrocientos cincuentaiocho de los 3,495 casos de linfoma maligno registrados entre los años 1965 y 1992 en el Instituto de Enfemedades Neoplásicas, correspondieron a Linfomas del Tracto Gastrointestinal. Esta es una de las series de linfoma del TGI más grande entre las reportadas por hospitales de cáncer, y sugiere que esta rara patología es relativamente frecuente en nuestro medio. El análisis de esta casuística muestra una mayor frecuencia relativa de la localización en el intestino delgado de esta serie comparte algunas características con el linfoma de la enfermedad inmunoproliferativa del intestino delgado descrita en las poblaciones jóvenes y pobres del Mediterraneo. La enfermedad confinada a la viscera (estadíos I y II) es curable por cirugía en 0 por ciento de casos. La enfermedad avanzada incompletamente resecada puede beneficiarse con quimioterapia complementaria. La enfermedad irresecable quirurgicamente puede ser tratada con quimioterapia complementaria de inducción sin que el riesgo de perforación o hemorragia sea prohibitivo el 50 por ciento de los casos inoperables tratados con quimioterapia alcanzaron sobrevidas a 5 y 10 años libres de recidiva de la enfermedad

Histological and immunohistochemical studies on primary gastrointestinal lymphomas

To study the characteristics and histogenesis of the malignant lymphomas derived from the gastrointestinal mucosa, histologic and immunohistochemical analyses were performed on a series of 28 malignant lymphomas of the gastrointestinal tract. By cytomorphologic classification, there were two small lymphocytic lymphomas, one small cleaved cell lymphoma, two mixed small cleaved and large cell lymphomas, 17 large cell lymphomas, one small noncleaved cell lymphoma, three immunoblastic lymphomas, and two lymphoblastic lymphomas. This distribution of histologic types was compatible with that of nodal lymphoma. The lymphomas with poor prognostic histology (23 cases) outnumbered those with favorable prognosis (five cases). Three of 28 cases (one in the stomach and two in the small intestine) had cytologic features consistent with centrocytoid cell lymphoma of the mucosa associated lymphoid tissue and were large cell lymphomas. Immunophenotypically, 23 cases expressed B-cell markers (82.1%) and three cases reacted with T-cell markers. Two cases did not react with either T-cell or B-cell markers. True histiocytic lymphomas were not identified. Gastric lymphomas (nine cases) and colorectal lymphomas (three cases) were of B-lymphocyte origin whereas T-cell lymphomas were noted in the small intestine (two cases) and ileocecal region (one case). Three cases of centrocytoid lymphoma were of B-lymphocyte origin. Histologically B-cell lineage lymphomas were evenly distributed on various histologic subtypes but all T-lineage lymphomas belonged to the large cell type. The two cases with undetermined phenotype were lymphoblastic lymphomas histologically. This study showed that the primary GIT lymphomas, mostly of B-cell lineage, were not cytomorphologically distinctive from the nodal lymphomas.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Histological and immunological analysis of gastric and intestinal lymphomas.

Immunophenotyping of 28 gastrointestinal non-Hodgkin's lymphomas was done using specific antibodies. Twenty six of these were successfully classified using this technique.