Giant Solitary Fibrous Tumor of Esophagus Resected by Endoscopic Submucosal Dissection.

Solitary fibrous tumor is one of the most common soft tissue benign tumors that occur in adults, but it rarely occurs in the gastrointestinal tract and even more infrequently occurs in the esophagus. Only 4 cases of esophageal solitary fibrous tumors have been reported in PubMed using the search terms "solitary fibrous tumor" and "esophagus". These cases were all treated using surgical methods. Thus, we report a case of primary solitary fibrous tumor of the esophagus treated by endoscopic submucosal dissection. Endoscopic submucosal dissection was well tolerated in this patient, suggesting that it may be a therapeutic option for primary giant esophageal neoplasms.

Expression of enoyl coenzyme A hydratase, short chain, 1, in colorectal cancer and its association with clinicopathological characteristics.

This study aimed to investigate the expression and clinical significance of enoyl coenzyme A hydratase, short chain, 1 (ECHS1), in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC). The ECHS1 protein expression as detected by immunohistochemistry in 148 CRC specimens was evaluated and compared by clinical pathology and prognosis; 38 specimens from proximal non-cancerous colorectal tissues were included as controls. The ECHS1 protein expression was also measured by western blot analysis in 46 fresh CRC tissue specimens and 22 normal colorectal tissue specimens. The rate of positive ECHS1 expression differed significantly between the CRC tissues (56.76%, 84/148) and the proximal non-cancerous colorectal tissues (5.26%, 2/38) (P<0.001). The ECHS1 protein expression was confirmed not to be associated with gender or age. However, the positive expression of ECHS1 tended to be positively associated with clinical TNM stage (P=0.015), lymph node metastasis (P=0.011) and histological differentiation (P=0.028). The expression of the ECHS1 protein on western blot analysis was significantly increased in CRC vs. normal tissues. In addition, the overall survival curves estimated with the Kaplan-Meier method demonstrated that CRC patients exhibiting low ECHS1 expression survived significantly longer compared to patients with high ECHS1 levels (P=0.039). Our data suggested that ECHS1 protein expression may contribute to the occurrence, progression and metastasis of CRC, is closely associated with prognosis and may provide useful information for CRC molecular-targeted therapy.

Knockdown of ECHS1 protein expression inhibits hepatocellular carcinoma cell proliferation via suppression of Akt activity.

Overexpression of ECHS1 occurs in different cancers, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). ECHS1 is also reported to have an oncogenic activity in various human cancers. This study investigated the effect of ECHS1 knockdown on the regulation of HCC growth. ECHS1 shRNA suppressed the expression of ECHS1 protein in HepG2 cells compared to the negative control vector-transfected HCC cells. ECHS1 knockdown also reduced HCC cell viability and enhanced cisplatin-induced apoptosis in HCC cells. Akt activation and the expression of various cell cycle-related genes were inhibited following ECHS1 knockdown. ECHS1 shRNA suppressed hepatocellular carcinoma growth in tumor xenograft mice. These data demonstrate that ECHS1 may play a role in HCC progression, suggesting that inhibition of ECHS1 expression using ECHS1 shRNA should be further evaluated as a novel target for the control of HCC.