The evaluation of bcl-2 expression as a prognostic marker in early stage laryngeal cancer.

AIMS AND BACKGROUND: To evaluate the effect of bcl-2 expression on the local control and overall survival of patients with early stage laryngeal cancer treated with radiotherapy alone. METHODS AND STUDY DESIGN: We included 53 patients with stage Tis, T1, and T2 laryngeal cancer who were irradiated in our department. Paraffin blocks of all biopsy specimens were subjected to immunohistochemical analysis with a bcl-2 oncoprotein mouse clone 124 Scytek kit. RESULTS: The mean follow-up time was 61 months (range, 7-166). Local-regional recurrence was observed in 10 (19%) patients. Forty-three patients (81%) had negative bcl-2 staining, 5 patients (9%) had + staining, 3 patients (6%) ++ staining, and 2 patients (4%) +++ staining. No relationship was detected between bcl-2 expression and local control or overall survival. The emergence of a recurrence and a younger age (<50 years) were significantly related to poor overall survival (P = 0.000 and P = 0.021, respectively). Patients with hemoglobin levels in the middle of radiotherapy and at the end of radiotherapy higher than 13 g/dl had improved overall survival in multivariate analyses (P = 0.002 and P = 0.001, respectively). Regarding local control, the following were poor prognostic factors: smoking more than 20 cigarettes a day (P = 0.001) and being younger than 50 years of age (P = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: No correlation was observed between bcl-2 expression and local control or overall survival. Whereas hemoglobin level, age and existence of a recurrence had a prognostic impact on overall survival, patient age and smoking status influenced local control rates.

Carcinoma originating from aberrant breast tissue. A case report and review of the literature.

Carcinoma arising from ectopic breast tissue, either supernumerary breast or aberrant breast tissue, is extremely rare. Carcinoma occurs more frequently in the ectopic breast tissue of the axilla than in extra-axillary ectopic breast tissue. Here we report a case of an invasive lobular carcinoma arising from extra-axillary ectopic breast tissue and presenting as a subcutaneous nodule.

Synchronous breast cancer in spouses.

Breast cancer in both spouses is extremely rare. There are 7 metachronous cases and 1 synchronous case in the English literature. No case has been reported in which 1 of the spouses had bilateral breast cancer. In this paper, we report a synchronous pair of cases where 1 of the spouses (wife) had bilateral breast cancer and the other (husband) had breast cancer.

Investigation of genotoxic effect of taxol plus radiation on mice bone marrow cells.

In this study, we investigated the genotoxic effect of taxol, radiation, or taxol plus radiation on highly proliferative normal tissue-bone marrow cells of Swiss albino mice. Swiss-albino mice, 3-4 months old, were used in this study. Taxol was administered bolus intravenously through the tail vein. Radiation was given by using a linear accelerator. There were four treatment categories, which had a total of 34 groups. Each group consisted of five animals. The first was the control category that had one group (n = 5). The second treatment category was taxol alone, which had three groups as per taxol dose alone (n = 15). The third treatment category was radiation alone, which had three groups as per the radiation dose (n = 15). The fourth treatment category was taxol plus radiation, which had 27 groups as per combined radiation dose plus taxol dose concentration and as per pre-treatment timing sequence of taxol before radiation (n = 135). Mice were sacrificed 24 h after taxol or radiation or combined administration using ether anesthesia. The cells were then dropped on two labeled slides, flamed, air dried, and stained in 7% Giemsa; 20-30 well-spread mitotic metaphases were analyzed for each animal; the cells with chromosome breaks, acentric fragments, and rearrangements were evaluated on x1,000 magnification with light microscope (Zeiss axioplan). The mitotic index was determined by counting the number of mitotic cells among 1,000 cells per animal. Differences between groups were evaluated with Student's t-test statistically. Taxol caused a dose-dependent increase in chromosomal aberrations (P = 0.027). Similarly, radiation caused a dose-dependent increase in chromosomal aberrations (P = 0.003) and decreased mitotic index (P = 0.002). In combination, there were a small enhancements at the 40 mg/kg taxol dose level and at 0.25 and 0.5 Gy radiation doses in the 48 h group. However, an increase in chromosomal aberrations was observed after 48 hours of taxol exposure when compared 12 or 24 h of taxol exposure (P = 0.001 and P = 0.019). These findings suggest that taxol at the high doses with low dose radiation caused radiosensitizing effect in bone marrow cells. Forty-eight-hour pretreatment of taxol exposure followed by radiation caused significant induction of chromosomal aberrations and a reduction of mitotic index when compared to other taxol timing sequence.