Relapse in children with clinical stage I testicular yolk sac tumors after initial orchiectomy.

PURPOSE: To evaluate risk factors of relapse in pediatric patients with clinical stage I (CS1) testicular yolk sac tumors. METHODS: With retrospective analysis, the medical records of children with pure testicular yolk sac tumors who were referred to Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center and The First Affiliated Hospital from January 1995 to December 2015 were selected and recorded. Histopathology and staging were retrieved and multivariate analysis was performed with SPSS 20.0 software. RESULTS: 90 children with CS1 testicular yolk sac tumors were selected, and 21 of them underwent chemotherapy following initial orchiectomy. The median age of them was 17 months. With a median follow-up of 61 months (range 11-183 months), 84 patients were alive and 3 patients died, whereas the status was unknown in 3 patients. 30 patients experienced relapse within a median time of 4 months, including only 1 patient who underwent primary chemotherapy, and 28 of these patients underwent salvage chemotherapy. According to adjusted analysis, lymphovascular invasion (LVI) (P < 0.001), necrosis (P = 0.003) and primary chemotherapy (P = 0.008) were independent predictors of event-free survival. The 4-year event-free survival of high- and low-risk patients was 46.5% and 85.1%, respectively (P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: LVI and necrosis were independent risk factors for relapse in pediatric patients with CS1 testicular yolk sac tumors, and primary chemotherapy was effective. Thus, individualized management might be feasible for these patients according to risk classification.

Effects of programmed death-ligand 1 expression on OK-432 immunotherapy following transurethral resection in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer.

The present study aimed to investigate the effect of the negative costimulatory molecule programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) on immunotherapy with OK-432, following transurethral resection of bladder tumors in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC), and to elucidate the underlying mechanism. PD-L1 was detected by immunohistochemical staining in tumor specimens from 55 cases of NMIBC following postoperative immunotherapy with OK-432. The PD-L1 mRNA and protein expression levels were measured in the bladder cancer T24 cell line and the human uroepithelial SV-HUC-1 cell line, following treatment with interleukin (IL)-2, interferon (IFN)-α and IFN-γ, by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) and western blot analysis, respectively. PD-L1 was widely expressed in the NMIBC tumors, with 56.4% (31/55) of specimens exhibiting positive staining. When compared with PD-L1-negative patients, PD-L1-positive patients exhibited significantly increased recurrence [48.4% (15/31) vs. 16.7% (4/24)] and progression [16.1% (5/31) vs. 4.2% (1/24)] rates (P<0.05). RT-qPCR and western blotting demonstrated that cytokines IL-2, IFN-α and IFN-γ markedly upregulated PD-L1 mRNA expression rates and protein levels in bladder cancer T24 cells (P<0.05), but had no significant effect in non-tumor SV-HUC-1 cells. In conclusion, PD-L1 expression was negatively-associated with the efficacy of OK-432 intravesical immunotherapy in patients with NMIBC. The results indicated that the involved mechanism occurred via upregulation of PD-L1 by immune cytokines, which in turn suppressed the antitumor effectiveness of the immune system, thereby promoting tumor recurrence and progression.

Management of adrenal incidentaloma: the role of adrenalectomy may be underestimated.

BACKGROUND: To demonstrate clinical characteristics of adrenal incidentaloma in South China and explore its comprehensive management. METHODS: The clinical data of patients with adrenal neoplasm from Jan 1998 to Dec 2012 were retrospectively analysed. Patients with suspicion of adrenal abnormalities or those in whom adrenal abnormalities were detected in the staging procedures of other cancers were excluded. Most patients with adrenal incidentaloma chose to have adrenalectomy, and some chose surveillance. The relationships between clinical features were analysed with a chi-square test and rank sum test. RESULTS: In total, 634 patients with adrenal incidentaloma were studied. Their age ranged from 17 to 85 years old with a median age of 50 years. Of 478 cases with pathological results, adenoma was the most common tumour (233/478), with 84 cases of pheochromocytoma and 36 cases of adrenocortical carcinoma were 84 and 36. When the tumour size was ≤4 cm, >95 % were benign; when the tumour size was >6 cm, 33 % were malignant. For patients with a tumour size ≤4 cm, 249/376 cases had an adrenalectomy performed. Due to anxiety over a potential malignant transformation and enlargement, most patients (>80 %) under surveillance preferred to undergo adrenalectomy. CONCLUSIONS: Pheochromocytoma and adrenocortical carcinoma were not rare tumours of adrenal incidentaloma, and 4 cm is a good size cutoff to use in the diagnosis of an adrenal incidentaloma. Other than surveillance, laparoscopic adrenalectomy may become the method of choice for management of small adrenal incidentaloma.

Percutaneous ultrasound-guided radiofrequency ablation treatment and genetic testing for renal cell carcinoma with Von Hippel-Lindau disease.

Percutaneous ultrasound-guided radiofrequency ablation is increasingly being studied in the treatment of renal tumors. Because percutaneous ultrasound-guided radiofrequency ablation is a minimally invasive and nephron-sparing procedure, it is ideally suited for patients with a single kidney, multiple tumors, or contraindications to conventional surgery. We report on a patient with Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) disease who had multicentric tumors in the single kidney that was successfully treated with percutaneous ultrasound-guided radiofrequncy ablation. The one-year follow-up showed that there was no local recurrence or metastasis. And genetic testing showed the patient had a T to G heterozygotic missense mutation at nucleotide 515 of VHL gene exon 1.

Clinical analysis of management of pediatric testicular germ cell tumors.

OBJECTIVE: To analyze our experiences of pediatric testicular tumors and investigate the management of pediatric testicular germ cell tumors. Pediatric testicular tumors are rare and the treatment of them has not been well defined. METHODS: Children treated for primary testicular tumors between January 1998 and July 2010 were retrospectively analyzed. For yolk sac tumor, the difference of survival rates between patients with and without retroperitoneal lymph node dissection (RPLND) was calculated. RESULTS: Eighty-seven cases met our criteria and 78 were germ cell tumors, including 40 cases with yolk sac tumor. Patients were 3-128 months old (median 19), and 53 patients were diagnosed at younger than 2 years of age. For germ cell tumors, serum α-fetoprotein and ß-human chorionic gonadotropin were elevated in 48 and 7 patients, respectively, including 38 and 2 in those with yolk sac tumor. RPLND and chemotherapy were performed in 13 and 19 patients, respectively, and surveillance was performed in 50 patients. With median follow-up of 50 months, 6 patients had recurrence, 4 patients died, and the others achieved complete remission. For stage I yolk sac tumor, the difference of survival rates between patients with and without RPLND was not significant (P = .808). CONCLUSION: Yolk sac tumor is the most common type of pediatric testicular tumor. For stage I yolk sac tumor, radical inguinal orchiectomy is effective, salvage chemotherapy is promising, and RPLND may not be necessary.

Over-expression of VEGF165 in the adipose tissue-derived stem cells via the lentiviral vector.

BACKGROUND: Many researchers studied the possibility of using stem cells as gene therapeutic vector. But few related reports on the adipose tissue-derived stem cells (ADSCs) are available. Therefore we intended to construct a lentiviral VEGF(165) expression vector and then infect the ADSCs to produce therapeutic seed cells. METHODS: EHS1001-68950485313912 clone was mutated by PCR method to produce consensus fragment of VEGF(165) transcript (NM_001025368). Lentivirus was enveloped with pGC-FU, pHelper 1.0 and pHelper 2.0 plasmids in 293T cells. And then the ADSCs (multiplicity of infection = 20) were transfected with the vectors after titer determination. Stable expression of VEGF(165) in ADSCs was confirmed by immunofluorescence staining, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and Western blotting analysis. RESULTS: DNA sequencing and 293T transfection verified VEGF(165) was linked to the GFP fused vector. The virus titer is up to 2 × 10(8) determined by quantitative PCR. VEGF(165) transduced cells could show green fluorescence confirmed by immunofluorescence staining (almost 95%). ELISA analyses could detect out the density of VEGF was 850.86 - 1202.13 pg/ml (mean (923.00 ± 31.22) pg/ml) in the supernatant of VEGF(165)-transduced cells but not detected in the GFP-transduced cells (P < 0.001) and the Western blotting analyses also confirmed VEGF(165) expression in VEGF(165)-transduced cells. CONCLUSIONS: The VEGF(165) over-expression ADSCs were obtained and may be used as a cell therapeutic tool and may be applied for vascular regeneration, especially in the treatment of erectile dysfunction.

[Daily medication of low-dose tadalafil improves endothelial function and erectile hardness of ED patients].

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effects of daily medication of low-dose tadalafil on the improvement of endothelial function and erectile hardness in erectile dysfunction (ED) patients. METHODS: A total of 60 ED patients and 24 controls were treated with oral tadalafil at 5 mg/d for 6 - 8 weeks, and evaluated by international index of erectile function-5 (IIEF-5), erectile hardness grading scale (EHGS) and brachial artery flow-mediated dilation (FMD) test before and after the treatment. All the data obtained were analyzed by independent-sample and paired-sample t tests, respectively. RESULTS: The treatment and follow-up were accomplished in 51 of the ED cases. Compared with the controls, the ED patients showed significantly lower scores on IIEF-5 (23.6 +/- 1.0 vs 10.3 +/- 4.5, P < 0.01), EHGS (3.7 +/- 0.5 vs 2.0 +/- 0.6, P < 0.01) and FMD (14.1 +/- 2.1 vs 8.1 +/- 1, P < 0.01). Daily medication of tadalafil achieved an effectiveness rate of 96.1% (49/51) in the treatment of the ED patients, and significantly improved their scores on IIEF-5 (16.9 +/- 3.9 vs 10.6 +/- 4.5, P < 0.01), EHGS (2.6 +/- 0.7 vs 2.0 +/- 0.6, P < 0.01) and FMD (9.2 +/- 1.7 vs 8.1 +/- 0.9, P < 0.01), as compared with pretreatment. CONCLUSION: Long-term daily medication of low-dose tadalafil can significantly improve endothelial function and erectile hardness of ED patients.

Utility of fluorescence in situ hybridization in the diagnosis of upper urinary tract urothelial carcinoma.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the clinical utility of fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) assay as a non-invasive method for diagnosing and monitoring urothelial carcinoma (UC) in the upper urinary tract (UUT). Urine specimens from 21 consecutive patients with UUT-UC and 10 healthy controls were analyzed by means of cytology and FISH. For FISH analysis, labeled probes specific for chromosomes 3, 7, and 17 and for the p16 (9p21) gene were used to assess chromosomal abnormalities indicative of malignancy. Sensitivity and specificity of both techniques were determined and compared. The frequency of chromosomal aberrations of malignant cells from UUT was also determined. Overall sensitivity of FISH was significantly higher than that of urine cytology (85.7% vs. 23.8%, p = 0.0009). Specificities for both FISH and cytology were 100% (p = ns). Of 21 patients with UUT-UC, polysomies of chromosome 3, 7 and 17 were observed in 57.1%, 52.4% and 28.6%, respectively, and loss of the p16 gene in 47.6%. FISH has a higher sensitivity than cytology and a similar specificity in dectecting UUT-UC. It may be a promising non-invasive tool for the diagnosis and surveillance of UUT-UC.

Metastasis to the penis in a patient with adenocarcinoma of lung, case report and literature review.

Metastasis of lung cancer to the penis is very rare; it causes various clinical symptoms seriously affecting the quality of life. Early recognition and appropriate management will likely enhance survival in these patients. Here, we report a case of penile metastasis secondary to pulmonary carcinoma along with a review of the literature. One case of penile metastasis secondary to pulmonary carcinoma was detected in a 51-year-old patient who was admitted to the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University with persistent cough along with swelling of the perineum and penis. The clinical features, diagnosis, and treatment of this disease along with a relevant literature are reviewed and discussed. A MEDLINE search was performed to identify similar reports in the literature. CT scan revealed lung mass, and a glans penis ulcer and enlargement of inguinal lymph nodes was discovered upon physical examination. CT-guided percutaneous puncture of the lung mass revealed adenocarcinoma of lung, and biopsies of the glans penis ulcer and inguinal lymph nodes confirmed metastatic adenocarcinoma. The patients received chemotherapy and died of acute pulmonary embolism in less than 2 months. Metastasis of lung cancer to the penis is extremely rare. It presents an advanced form of lung cancer, and thus survival is extremely short. Although treatment of penile metastasis is almost always palliative, early recognition may enhance survival for these patients.

[Clinical analysis of renal cell carcinoma: report of 271 cases].

OBJECTIVE: To study the diagnosis and treatment of renal cell carcinoma. METHOD: From January 1993 to December 2000 the data of 271 cases of renal cell carcinoma were reviewed. RESULTS: Ultrasonography and CT scanning were still the main diagnostic methods. Surgical operation was performed on 234 patients. Radical nephrectomy was performed on 197 patients (72.6%); Nephron sparing surgery was performed on 19 patients; Metastatic tumor resection was performed on 6 patients and other procedures for 12. The pathological results showed that 137 cases (61.4%) were clear cell carcinoma, 18 cases (8. 1%) of granular cell carcinoma, 32 cases (14. 3%) being combination of the above two varieties, 23 cases (10.3%) of renal papillary adenocarcinoma, 13 cases being renal cell of other types. And 210 cases (77.5%) had been successfully followed up. The 1, 3, 5 and 10 year survival rates were 95.3% (182/191), 88.7% (107/122), 74.7% (56/75) and 32.1% (10/31) respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Ultrasonography is the first select examination method of detecting of renal cell carcinoma, and CT scanning is the most valuable diagnostic mean. Early diagnosis and prompt radical nephrectomy or nephron sparing nephrectomy are the critical points for achieving long-term survivals of patients with renal cell carcinoma.

[Diagnosis and therapy for penile cancer: a report of 46 cases with literature review].

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE: Penile cancer is an uncommon malignancy, which is mainly treated by surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. This study was to investigate reasonable curative methods for penile cancer. METHODS: Medical records of 46 patients with penile cancer in the Department of Urology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University between Jan. 1996 to Jan. 2005 were analyzed retrospectively. Forty-four patients had squamous cell carcinoma, one had Paget disease, and one had verrucous carcinoma. RESULTS: Thirty-nine patients received partial penectomy, four received total penectomy and perineal urethrostomy, one Paget disease patient received lesion resection and skin grafting, two patients did not receive surgery. Nine out of 10 patients with positive lymph node received ilioinguinal lymphadenectomy, and five received pelvic lymphadenectomy. Forty-one cases were regularly followed up for one to 10 years. The 1-, 2-, 5- and 10- year survival rates were 95.1%, 95.1%, 82.9% and 31.7%, respectively. Prognosis of patients with pelvic lymph node metastasis was poor. Two patients who had pelvic lymph node metastasis died of lung metastasis within two years after surgery. CONCLUSIONS: Partial penectomy is an appropriate and effective management for penile cancer. Lymph node metastasis is an important prognostic factor for penile cancer. Patients with ilioinguinal lymph node metastasis should receive lymphadenectomy as early as possible to improve the therapeutic effect. The prognosis is poor for patients with pelvic lymph node metastases.

Persistent Muellerian duct syndrome with transverse testicular ectopia.

Persistent Muellerian duct syndrome (PMDS) is a rare form of male pseudohermaphrodism without the feature of ambiguous genitalia. We present a case of PMDS with transverse testicular ectopia (TTE).