Giant Intrathoracic Mass in a Young Woman With Acute Kidney Injury.

CASE PRESENTATION: A 35-year-old woman without past medical history sought treatment for fatigue and dry cough of 3 weeks' duration. Basic laboratory tests revealed severe anemia. She had no history of bleeding, hemoptysis, dyspnea, or fever. The patient was admitted for RBC transfusion and more extensive diagnostics.

Changes in plasma miR-9, miR-16, miR-205 and miR-486 levels after non-small cell lung cancer resection.

PURPOSE: The majority of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients presents with an advanced-stage disease and, consequently, exhibits a poor overall survival rate. We aimed to assess changes in plasma miR-9, miR-16, miR-205 and miR-486 levels and their potential as biomarkers for the diagnosis and monitoring of NSCLC patients. METHODS: Plasma was collected from 50 healthy donors and from NSCLC patients before surgery (n = 61), 1 month after surgery (n = 37) and 1 year after surgery (n = 14). microRNA levels were quantified using qRT-PCR. RESULTS: We found in NSCLC patients before treatment, both with squamous cell carcinoma (SQCC) and adenocarcinoma (ADC), significantly higher plasma miR-16 and miR-486 levels than in healthy individuals. Pre-treatment miR-205 concentrations were found to be significantly higher in SQCC than in ADC patients, and only SQCC patients presented significantly higher circulating miR-205 levels than healthy donors. SQCC plasma miR-9 levels were not different from normal control levels, but in ADC they were found to be significantly decreased. A combination of plasma miR-16, miR-205 and miR-486 measurements was found to discriminate NSCLC patients from healthy persons, with a specificity of 95% and a sensitivity of 80%. Following tumor resection, we found that the miR-9 and miR-205 levels significantly decreased, even below the normal level, whereas the increased miR-486 level persisted up to one year after surgery, and the miR-16 level decreased to normal. After tumor resection, none of the miR levels tested was found to relate to recurrence. CONCLUSIONS: Our data indicate that miR-9, miR-16, miR-205 and miR-486 may serve as NSCLC biomarkers. The observed cancer-related pre- and post-operative changes in their plasma levels may not only reflect the presence of a primary cancer, but also of a systemic response to cancer.

VEGF, IL-18 and NO production by neutrophils and their serum levels in patients with oral cavity cancer.

It is known that the relationship between pro-angiogenic and anti-angiogenic factors is responsible for the presence and intensity of neoangiogenesis. The angiogenic factors are produced by tumour cells and/or by tumour-infiltrating inflammatory cells such as macrophages or polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN). In the present study we compared VEGF secretion with IL-18 and NO release by PMN derived from oral cavity cancer patients. Knowledge of the relationship between mediators above could help in better understanding the role of PMN in angiogenesis in this patient group. The results from culture supernatants of PMN were confronted with the serum levels of parameters examined. We found an interesting relationship between VEGF and IL-18 concentrations in the culture supernatants of PMN derived from patients with oral cavity cancer. High production of VEGF was associated with low production of IL-18 by PMN derived from patients before treatment. During examinations after treatment we found lower concentrations of VEGF and higher concentrations of IL-18 than those in the study before treatment. In contrast to VEGF and IL-18, the NO production by PMN of cancer patients, before and after treatment, was unchanged. We also demonstrated markedly elevated serum levels of VEGF as well as IL-18 according to the progression of the disease. Results obtained indicate that relations between VEGF and IL-18 released by PMN may promote neoangiogenesis and may be important for benign tumour cells to acquire metastatic phenotype in the early stage of oral cavity cancer. Furthermore, our results suggest that the concentrations of VEGF and IL-18 in the serum are sensitive tumour markers in this patient group before and after treatment.