Incidental Gastric Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis and Synchronous Adenocarcinoma of the Colon: An Interesting Case Report and Literature Review.

BACKGROUND/AIM: Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) is an uncommon disorder characterized by an abnormal monoclonal proliferation of pathologic Langerhans cells. The clinical presentation of LCH is very unpredictable, ranging from single-system limited disease to severe multi-organ disease with a high mortality rate. LCH usually affects children and very rarely adults. The most common body parts affected by LCH are the bones, skin, lungs, pituitary glands, and lymph nodes. Gastrointestinal tract involvement by LCH is exceptionally rare, and only a few cases have been reported. CASE REPORT: We present the case of a 50-year-old woman who was referred to our clinic by her primary care physician for an upper endoscopy and colonoscopy and was diagnosed with H. pylori-related gastritis and a synchronous gastric LCH and primary colonic adenocarcinoma. We describe the histologic characteristics and clinical implications of the LCH diagnosis. A review of the published literature revealed that LCH presenting as a gastric solitary lesion is rare. CONCLUSION: This case highlights the importance of recognizing this rare condition to ensure proper patient follow-up.

Mathematical modeling of therapeutic neural stem cell migration in mouse brain with and without brain tumors.

Neural stem cells (NSCs) offer a potential solution to treating brain tumors. This is because NSCs can circumvent the blood-brain barrier and migrate to areas of damage in the central nervous system, including tumors, stroke, and wound injuries. However, for successful clinical application of NSC treatment, a sufficient number of viable cells must reach the diseased or damaged area(s) in the brain, and evidence suggests that it may be affected by the paths the NSCs take through the brain, as well as the locations of tumors. To study the NSC migration in brain, we develop a mathematical model of therapeutic NSC migration towards brain tumor, that provides a low cost platform to investigate NSC treatment efficacy. Our model is an extension of the model developed in Rockne et al. (PLoS ONE 13, e0199967, 2018) that considers NSC migration in non-tumor bearing naive mouse brain. Here we modify the model in Rockne et al. in three ways: (i) we consider three-dimensional mouse brain geometry, (ii) we add chemotaxis to model the tumor-tropic nature of NSCs into tumor sites, and (iii) we model stochasticity of migration speed and chemosensitivity. The proposed model is used to study migration patterns of NSCs to sites of tumors for different injection strategies, in particular, intranasal and intracerebral delivery. We observe that intracerebral injection results in more NSCs arriving at the tumor site(s), but the relative fraction of NSCs depends on the location of injection relative to the target site(s). On the other hand, intranasal injection results in fewer NSCs at the tumor site, but yields a more even distribution of NSCs within and around the target tumor site(s).

Gastric intestinal metaplasia is associated with gastric dysplasia but is inversely correlated with esophageal dysplasia.

AIM: To determine which clinical factors might be associated with gastric intestinal metaplasia (IM) in a North American population. METHODS: Pathology and endoscopy databases at an academic medical center were reviewed to identify patients with and without gastric IM on biopsies for a retrospective cohort study. Patient demographics, insurance status, and other clinical factors were reviewed. RESULTS: Four hundred and sixty-eight patients with gastric IM (mean age: 61.0 years ± 14.4 years, 55.5% female) and 171 without gastric IM (mean age: 48.8 years ± 20.8 years, 55.0% female) were compared. The endoscopic appearance of atrophic gastritis correlated with finding gastric IM on histopathology (OR = 2.05, P = 0.051). Gastric IM was associated with histologic findings of chronic gastritis (OR = 2.56, P < 0.001), gastric ulcer (OR = 6.97, P = 0.015), gastric dysplasia (OR = 6.11, P = 0.038), and gastric cancer (OR = 6.53, P = 0.027). Histologic findings of Barrett's esophagus (OR = 0.28, P = 0.003) and esophageal dysplasia (OR = 0.11, P = 0.014) were inversely associated with gastric IM. Tobacco use (OR = 1.73, P = 0.005) was associated with gastric IM. CONCLUSION: Patients who smoke or have the endoscopic finding of atrophic gastritis are more likely to have gastric IM and should have screening gastric biopsies during esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD). Patients with gastric IM are at increased risk for having gastric dysplasia and cancer, and surveillance EGD with gastric biopsies in these patients might be reasonable.

Gastric intestinal metaplasia and early gastric cancer in the west: a changing paradigm.

Gastric cancer remains the fifth leading cancer diagnosis worldwide, and it is the third leading cause of cancer-related mortality. The incidence of gastric cancer within the United States, however, has remained substantially lower than elsewhere, which has led to a lack of screening and surveillance in clinical practice. Patients with known premalignant lesions, such as gastric intestinal metaplasia, which can increase the risk of gastric cancer by as much as 6-fold, might benefit from surveillance guidelines to detect gastric cancer at an earlier, potentially curative stage. Chro-moendoscopy with optical magnification, narrow-band imaging, and other image-enhanced endoscopic techniques are commercially available to assist in the diagnosis of premalignant gastric lesions and early gastric cancer. Furthermore, endoscopic mucosal resection and endoscopic submucosal dissection have become more widely available and offer potentially curative endoscopic resection for dysplastic lesions of the stomach and early gastric cancers, which is an alternative to traditional surgical resection.

Prevalence and predictors of esophageal varices in patients with primary biliary cirrhosis.

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Esophageal varices and bleeding are among the most feared complications of primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC). We aimed to determine the prevalence of esophageal varices in patients with PBC, to evaluate noninvasive markers of esophageal varices in this population, and to validate the results in an independent set of patients. METHODS: Data were collected on all patients with PBC seen for the first time at the University of Florida (study group) and at Case Western Reserve University hospitals (cross-validation group) during 7 consecutive years. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify independent predictors of esophageal varices. The best cut-off values were calculated based on receiver operating characteristic curves. The diagnostic accuracy of the independent predictors of esophageal varices identified in the study group were retested in the cross-validation group. RESULTS: Of 210 patients with PBC seen at the University of Florida, 113 had an endoscopy and 49.6% (56 of 113) were found to have esophageal varices. After excluding 22 patients with a history of variceal bleeding, data on 91 patients were analyzed. Thirty-four patients had esophageal varices (37%). Multivariate analysis revealed that a platelet count of less than 140,000 (odds ratio, 7.6; 95% confidence interval, 1.6-37) and a Mayo risk score of 4.5 or greater (odds ratio, 10.6; 95% confidence interval, 1.8-62) were independent predictors of esophageal varices. The diagnostic accuracy of these predictors was confirmed in an independent set of patients. CONCLUSIONS: Among patients with PBC, a platelet count of less than 140,000 and/or a Mayo risk score of 4.5 or greater appears to identify those patients more likely to benefit from a screening endoscopy.