Hemangiopericytoma of greater omentum.

A 67-year-old man presented with a painless abdominal lump. CT scan revealed a large vascular intraperitoneal mass. At laparotomy, a large, vascular tumor was seen to arise from the greater omentum, which was resected. At histology, this tumor was a benign hemangiopericytoma.

DNA analysis of breast cancer by flow cytometry & correlation with other prognostic parameters.

Flow cytometric estimation of DNA content (ploidy and S-phase fraction--SpF) was done on breast cancer tissues from 171 patients. Twenty eight per cent of the tumours were diploid and 72 per cent were aneuploid. SpF was measurable in 82 DNA histograms; of these 22.4 per cent had SpF less than 10 per cent, 34.1 per cent had SpF between 10-20 and 43.5 per cent had SpF greater than 20 per cent. The mean SpF of the measurable histograms was 19.01 per cent with a range 1.78 to 45.19 per cent. A significant correlation between DNA ploidy and SpF was observed (P less than 0.01). Eighty nine per cent of diploid tumours had SpF less than 10 per cent and 73 per cent of aneuploid tumours had SpF greater than 20 per cent. A significant correlation was also found between ploidy and SpF and oestrogen receptor (ER) status of the tumours (P less than 0.05) and between SpF and progesterone receptor (PgR) status of the tumours (P less than 0.05), but not between ploidy and PgR status of the tumours. A significant direct correlation was observed between SpF and tumour grade (P less than 0.05), but not between ploidy and tumour grade. No correlation was observed between DNA ploidy and SpF and tumour type, tumour size, axillary lymph node involvement, age and menopausal status of the patients. Although the incidence of breast cancer is one-third of that reported in the Western countries, there is apparently no biological difference between the various parameters studied.

Differences in oestrogen receptor status and histological grade of breast cancer in different religious communities in Bombay.

The various religious communities in India viz.Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Parsi have different breast cancer incidence rate. It is not known whether there might also exist differences in biological properties of breast cancer between these communities. To investigate this possibility we have studied the distribution of oestrogen receptor (ER) status and histological grade of tumour in these four communities. Significant differences were observed in the overall distribution of ER positivity and histological grade between the communities P less than for both parameters). Christians had the highest incidence of ER +ve (65.2%) and grade I + II tumours (16.0%), while Muslims had the lowest incidence of ER +ve (35.8%) and Grade I + II tumours (4.7%). In general, we found a significant positive relationship between ER status and age of the patient (p less than 0.0.1). The mean age of the christians was slightly but significantly higher than that of the Hindus and Muslim. The difference ER positivity between the communities might, therefore, be partly (but probably not wholly) explained by difference in age of the patients. However, the difference with respect to grade of tumour cannot be explained as a function of age since no significant association was found between grade of the tumour and age of the patient. Further investigation with respect to difference in the biology of the breast cancer between the communities are warranted.