Leiomyosarcoma of the vulva.

Malignant tumors of the vulva soft tissue are uncommon. About 1-3% are sarcomas. They can be mistaken as benign lesions, leading to misdiagnosis and mistreatment. A case of a 71-year-old woman with a leiomyosarcoma of the vulva is presented. The surgical excision of the lesion is described and there were no additional malignancies or lesions found. There was no need for adjuvant therapy.

Immunhistochemical analysis for expression of calpain 1, calpain 2 and calpastatin in ovarian cancer.

Calpains, also called calcium activated neutral proteases (CANP), are expressed ubiquitously. They are intracellular, non-lysosomal cytoplasmic cysteine endopeptidases. Calcium is required for their activation. Their endogenous specific inhibitor is calpastatin, which is expressed ubiquitously and coexists within cells besides calpain. When calcium is present, calpastatin and calpain attach to each other inhibiting the protease. The calpain system plays an important role in many processes including apoptosis, necrosis, ischemia formation and exocytosis. So far, many reports exist on studies about the influence of calpains in different tumors (skin, breast, renal cell and prostate cancers). The role of calpains in pathogenesis or further tumor progression has always been proved in related studies, but their exact function could not be demonstrated. So far, no studies on calpains being involved in the pathogenesis of ovarian cancer have been published. In our study we focused on the expression of the enzymes calpain 1, calpain 2 and their inhibitor calpastatin in normal and malign ovarian tissue. Therefore, we performed immunohistochemical stainings of paraffin slices and evaluated staining intensity (SI), percentage of positive cells (PP) and immunoreactive score (IRS). We evaluated the correlation between enzyme expression in malign and benign ovarian tissues. In malignant ovarian tissue, we found decreased expression, staining intensity and immunoreactive score of calpastatin. With higher grading of the ovarian carcinoma, staining intensity and immunoreactive score of calpain 1 decreased. Staining intensity of calpain 2 in ovarian carcinoma decreased with increasing lymph node status. We clearly demonstrated differences between enzyme expressions in malign and benign tissue. This study could not find any specific function of calpains. Only few studies in the literature have been found that deal with calpain evaluation of ovarian cancer. Additional studies including more patients are required to elucidate the functional role and impact of calpain in tumors in detail.

Management of recurrence from a retroperitoneal xanthogranuloma: case report.

Xanthogranulomas from the retroperitoneal space are rare. To our knowledge only a few cases have been reported in the literature in the retroperitoneal space. In this report, the authors present the case of a 24-year-old woman with a recurrence of this rare tumor. Two years after resection, the mass showed rapid local recurrence. Attention should be paid to the possibility of the transformation into a fibroxanthosarcoma, which could have an aggressive clinical course.