Two case reports of Castleman disease with pulmonary involvement.

Castleman disease (CD) is a rare reactive lymphoproliferative disorder, first identified in 1954. We recently had the opportunity to analyse the characteristics of two variations of CD with pulmonary involvement. Case 1 had localised retroperitoneal hyaline vascular type CD, while Case 2 was diagnosed as multicentric plasma cell type CD. Both patients had pulmonary symptoms and signs, including cough, dyspnoea, hypoxaemia and ventilatory dysfunction; however, they had different physiological manifestations of their pulmonary abnormalities.

Non-viral FoxM1 gene delivery to hepatocytes enhances liver repopulation.

Hepatocyte transplantation as a substitute strategy of orthotopic liver transplantation is being studied for treating end-stage liver diseases. Several technical hurdles must be overcome in order to achieve the therapeutic liver repopulation, such as the problem of insufficient expansion of the transplanted hepatocytes in recipient livers. In this study, we analyzed the application of FoxM1, a cell-cycle regulator, to enhance the proliferation capacity of hepatocytes. The non-viral sleeping beauty (SB) transposon vector carrying FoxM1 gene was constructed for delivering FoxM1 into the hepatocytes. The proliferation capacities of hepatocytes with FoxM1 expression were examined both in vivo and in vitro. Results indicated that the hepatocytes with FoxM1 expression had a higher proliferation rate than wild-type (WT) hepatocytes in vitro. In comparison with WT hepatocytes, the hepatocytes with FoxM1 expression had an enhanced level of liver repopulation in the recipient livers at both sub-acute injury (fumaryl acetoacetate hydrolase (Fah)(-/-) mice model) and acute injury (2/3 partial hepatectomy mice model). Importantly, there was no increased risk of tumorigenicity with FoxM1 expression in recipients even after serial transplantation. In conclusion, expression of FoxM1 in hepatocytes enhanced the capacity of liver repopulation without inducing tumorigenesis. FoxM1 gene delivered by non-viral SB vector into hepatocytes may be a viable approach to promote therapeutic repopulation after hepatocyte transplantation.

A comparison of quality of life and satisfaction of women with early-stage breast cancer treated with breast conserving therapy vs. mastectomy in southern China.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to compare the quality of life (QoL) and overall satisfaction with treatment of women with stage T1-2N0M0 breast cancer treated with breast conserving therapy (BCT) or mastectomy (MAS) in southern China. METHODS: Functional assessment of cancer therapy-breast, traditional Chinese version 4 (FACT-B), was administered to 180 patients with stage T1-2N0M0 breast cancer (82 BCT and 98 MAS) treated between July 2000 and July 2008. RESULTS: The two groups differed in tumor pathology and how axillary lymph nodes were treated (sentinel node biopsy vs. dissection), while other disease and socioeconomic characteristics were similar. The median follow-up after completion of radiotherapy was 60 months in the BCT group, and 65 months in the MAS group. The scores of the physical, functional, and emotional domains and breast-specific concerns of FACT-B were not significantly different between the groups. The social domain score of the BCT group was significantly greater than those of the MAS group. CONCLUSIONS: Patients who underwent BCT did not report better QoL than those who received MAS, but BCT patients experienced easier social adjustment.

Definitive concomitant chemoradiotherapy with docetaxel and cisplatin in squamous esophageal carcinoma.

Chemoradiotherapy is a standard treatment for esophageal carcinoma. This study evaluated the docetaxel-based definitive concomitant chemoradiotherapy in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma to determine its clinical response and overall survival. In this unicenter trail, we enrolled 59 patients with histologically proven squamous cell carcinoma in the esophagus between March 2004 and December 2007. All patients were staged II to IV and treated with definitive concomitant chemoradiotherapy. Radiotherapy was delivered with conventional fraction, 50-64 Gy in 25-35 fractions. Patients received two cycles of a 1-day regimen containing docetaxel (60 mg/m(2)) and cisplatin (80 mg/m(2)) every 3 weeks during the period of radiotherapy. The chemoradiotherapy was applied as planned in all patients and the median chemotherapy delay time was 6 days (ranging from 2 to 8 days). The overall response rate for 59 evaluable patients was 98.3%, with 42 complete responses and 26 partial responses. During the follow-up time (median 18 months, 4 approximately 53 months), the median overall survival time was 22.6 months. The rate of locoregional progression-free survival, progression-free survival, and overall survival in 3 years was 59.6%, 29.2%, and 36.7%, respectively. Hematologic toxicity Grade 3 and Grade 4 were observed in 39.0% and 20.3% of patients respectively, with severe non-hematologic acute toxicity being infrequent. Eleven patients had pleural effusion after chemoradiotherapy and four of them required therapeutic thoracentesis. Definitive concomitant chemoradiotherapy with docetaxel and cisplatin in squamous cell esophageal carcinoma was associated with a satisfactory outcome and manageable toxicity.