[Primary lymphomas of the urinary in the urological service of the Yaounde Central Hospital]. / Les lymphomes primitifs urogénitaux : l'expérience du service d'urologie de l'hôpital Central de Yaoundé (Cameroun).

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study were to recruit and present epidemiological, clinical, histological and therapeutic aspects of primary lymphomas of the urogenital tract in Cameroon. MATERIAL AND METHOD: This was a retrospective study over a 10-year period (1999-2008) done on clinical records of the Urological Unit of the Yaounde Central Hospital. From these records, we noted the age and the sex of the patients, their clinical presentation and histological aspect. The patients were treated by surgical resection and chemotherapy. RESULTS: Twenty cases were recruited between this period of the study. The age of the patients varied from 6 to 60 years with a mean age of 35 years. There were 19 men and one woman. Eighteen cases involved the testis, one case the kidney and one penile involvement. On histology, there were 19 cases of Burkitt's lymphoma and one case of large B cell lymphoma involving the penis. Three patients had positive syphilis serology and two other were HIV positive. All the patients in this series had a complete remission after treatment but the tumour recurs after 6 to 9 months. CONCLUSION: Burkitt's lymphoma is the first malignant tumour of the testis in Cameroonian. Unfortunately, patients consult late, there are no supports for the treatment and this will lead to a poor prognosis.

[Herceptin, a monoclonal humanized antibody anti-HER2: a major therapeutic progress in breast cancers overexpressing this oncogene?]. / Anticorps humanisé anti-HER2 (Trastuzumab ou Herceptin): une avancée thérapeutique majeure dans le cancer du sein surexprimant cet oncogène?

HER2 is overexpressed in about 25% to 30% of breast cancers and associated with poor prognosis, resistance to hormonotherapy and lack of sensitivity to CMF-based adjuvant chemotherapy. Herceptin (trastuzumab), a humanized monoclonal antibody, administered as a single agent, produces objective responses in phase II trials in patients with metastatic breast cancers overexpressing HER2. It has shown a substantial benefit in a phase III trial which compares a standard first line chemotherapy (doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide or taxol alone) to the same chemotherapy with Herceptin in metastatic breast cancer. The Herceptin arm had significantly higher response rate (+ 53%), an improvement in the median duration of response (+ 57%) as well as in time to progression (+ 65%) compared to chemotherapy alone.

The Ewing family of tumors--a subgroup of small-round-cell tumors defined by specific chimeric transcripts.

BACKGROUND: Precise diagnosis of small-round-cell tumors is often a challenge to the pathologist and the clinical oncologist. In Ewing's sarcomas and related peripheral primitive neuroectodermal tumors, a t(11;22) translocation or a (21,22) rearrangement is associated with hybrid transcripts of the EWS gene with the FLI1 or ERG gene. To investigate the diagnostic implication of this observation, we searched for these hybrid transcripts in tumors from patients with clinical and radiologic features of Ewing's sarcoma or peripheral primitive neuroectodermal tumors. METHODS: Samples of RNA from 114 tumors were reverse transcribed and subjected to the polymerase chain reaction with primers designed to amplify the relevant chimeric transcripts. All amplified products were sequenced. RESULTS: In-frame hybrid transcripts were observed in 89 cases. A hybrid transcript was found in 83 of 87 cases (95 percent) of Ewing's sarcoma or peripheral primitive neuroectodermal tumors. Samples of RNA from all of 12 tumors that had been proved to be other than Ewing's sarcoma or neuroectodermal tumors had no hybrid transcript. However, 6 of 15 undifferentiated tumors whose type was ambiguous (nonsecreting, poorly differentiated neuroblastoma or undifferentiated sarcoma) contained a hybrid transcript, suggesting that they might have to be reclassified. CONCLUSIONS: A subgroup of small-round-cell tumors identified as belonging to the Ewing family of tumors can be defined according to a specific molecular genetic lesion that is detectable by a rapid, reliable, and efficient method. This approach can be applied to small specimens obtained by fine-needle biopsies.