Multifocal Urinary Tract Metastasis of Colorectal Carcinoma.

INTRODUCTION: Secondary urinary tract tumors are uncommon findings and mainly evolve by direct invasion from adjacent organs. Actual metastatic involvement often develops in the urinary bladder, while the upper urinary tract is infrequently affected. In addition, the lungs, breast, and prostate gland are the usual primary sites. Colorectal carcinoma (CRC) may spread to the ureter directly or seeds via vascular or lymphatic channels. It may pose struggles in the differential diagnosis because CRC shares standard pathologic features with the primary adenocarcinoma of the urinary tract. CASE PRESENTATION: We describe the case of an 81-year-old man who was referred to our hospital with a distal ureteral tumor that was treated by a ureteronephrectomy. The histopathological and genetic analysis established the diagnosis of metastatic CRC along with 3 metastases in the renal pelvis. CONCLUSION: This rare case highlights the limitations of conventional histological processing, including immunohistochemistry, and it underlines the role of molecular investigations in certain circumstances.

Characterization and therapeutic application of canine adipose mesenchymal stem cells to treat elbow osteoarthritis.

Visceral adipose tissue (AT) obtained from surgical waste during routine ovariectomies was used as a source for isolating canine mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). As determined by cytofluorimetry, passage 2 cells expressed MSC markers CD44 and CD90 and were negative for lineage-specific markers CD34 and CD45. The cells differentiated toward osteogenic, adipogenic, and chondrogenic directions. With therapeutic aims, 30 dogs (39 joints) suffering from elbow dysplasia (ED) and osteoarthritis (OA) were intra-articularly transplanted with allogeneic MSCs suspended in 0.5% hyaluronic acid (HA). A highly significant improvement was achieved without any medication as demonstrated by the degree of lameness during the follow-up period of 1 y. Control arthroscopy of 1 transplanted dog indicated that the cartilage had regenerated. Histological analysis of the cartilage biopsy confirmed that the regenerated cartilage was of hyaline type. These results demonstrate that transplantation of allogeneic adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells (AT-MSCs) is a novel, noninvasive, and highly effective therapeutic tool in treating canine elbow dysplasia.

Du tissu adipeux viscéral (TA) obtenu de résidus chirurgicaux lors d'ovariectomies de routine a été utilisé comme source pour isoler des cellules souches mésenchymateuses canines (CSMs). Tel que déterminé par cytofluorométrie, les cellules du 2e passage exprimaient les marqueurs de CSM CD44 et CD90, et étaient négatives pour les marqueurs spécifiques de lignée CD34 et CD45. Les cellules se sont différenciées dans des directions ostéogéniques, adipogéniques, et chondrogéniques. À des fins thérapeutiques, 30 chiens (39 articulations) souffrant de dysplasie du coude (DC) et d'ostéoarthrite (OA) ont reçu une transplantation intra articulaire de CSMs allogéniques en suspension dans 0,5 % d'acide hyaluronique (AH). Une amélioration hautement significative a été obtenue sans aucune médication tel que démontré par le degré de boiterie durant la période de suivi de 1 an. Une arthroscopie de contrôle de un des chiens ayant reçu une transplantation montrait que le cartilage s'était régénéré. L'analyse histologique de la biopsie du cartilage a confirmé que le cartilage régénéré était de type hyalin. Ces résultats démontrent que la transplantation de cellules souches mésenchymateuses dérivées de tissu adipeux allogène est un outil thérapeutique novateur, non-invasif, et très efficace pour traiter la dysplasie du coude chez le chien.(Traduit par Docteur Serge Messier).

Simultaneous detection of BRCA mutations and large genomic rearrangements in germline DNA and FFPE tumor samples.

The development of breast and ovarian cancer is strongly connected to the inactivation of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes by different germline and somatic alterations, and their diagnosis has great significance in targeted tumor therapy, since recently approved PARP inhibitors show high efficiency in the treatment of BRCA-deficient tumors. This raises the need for new diagnostic methods that are capable of performing an integrative mutation analysis of the BRCA genes not only from germline DNA but also from formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tumor samples. Here we describe the development of such a methodology based on next-generation sequencing and a new bioinformatics software for data analysis. The diagnostic method was initially developed on an Illumina MiSeq NGS platform using germline-mutated stem cell lines and then adapted for the Ion Torrent PGM NGS platform as well. We also investigated the usability of NGS coverage data for the detection of copy number variations and exon deletions as a replacement of the conventional MLPA technique. Finally, we tested the developed workflow on FFPE samples from breast and ovarian cancer patients. Our method meets the sensitivity and specificity requirements for the genetic diagnosis of breast and ovarian cancers both from germline and FFPE samples.