Genome-wide paternal uniparental disomy as a cause of Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome associated with recurrent virilizing adrenocortical tumors.

Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome (BWS) is an overgrowth syndrome characterized by fetal macrosomia, macroglossia, and abdominal wall defects. BWS patients are at risk to develop Wilms tumor, neuroblastoma, hepatoblastoma, and adrenal tumors. A young woman with BWS features, but with inconclusive genetic evidence for the disease, came to clinical observation for signs of virilization at the age of 16 years. An adrenocortical tumor was diagnosed and surgically resected. The tumor underwent 2 local relapses that were also surgically treated. The patient was also operated to remove a breast fibroadenoma. SNP arrays were used to analyze chromosome abnormalities in normal and tumor samples from the patient and her parents. The patient presented genome-wide mosaic paternal uniparental disomy (patUPD) both in the adrenocortical and the breast tumors, with different degrees of loss of heterozygosity (LOH). The more recent relapses of the adrenocortical tumor showed a loss of part of chromosome 17p that was absent in the first tumor. Analysis of a skin biopsy sample also showed mosaic patUPD with partial LOH, while no LOH was detected in leukocyte DNA. This case shows that virilizing adrenocortical tumors may be a clinical feature of patients with BWS. The SNP array technology is useful to diagnose genome-wide patUPD mosaicism in BWS patients with an inconclusive molecular diagnosis and underlines the tumorigenic potential of the absence of the maternal genome combined with an excess of the paternal genome.

Towards a "Lyon molecular signature" to individualize the treatment of rectal cancer. Prognostic analysis of a prospective cohort of 94 rectal cancers T1-2-3 Nx MO to be the basis of a molecular signature.

PURPOSE: In 1998 a translational research was initiated in Lyon aiming at identifying a prognostic "biomolecular signature" in rectal cancer. This paper presents the clinical outcome of the patients included in this study. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A total of 94 patients were included between 1998 and 2001. A staging with rectoscopy and biopsies was performed before treatment. In case of surgery, the operative specimen was analysed to evaluate the pathological response. There were two types of treatment: neoadjuvant radiotherapy (with or without concurrent chemotherapy) followed by surgery (76 cases) and radiotherapy alone with 'contactherapy' often associated with external beam radiotherapy (18 patients). RESULTS: The patients had a mean age of 63years. Stage was T1: 4, T2: 24, T3: 65 and T4: 1. The overall survival of the 94 patients was 62% at 8years with a rate of distant metastases of 29%. Rate of local recurrence at 8years was 6% in the neoadjuvant group and 16% in the radiotherapy group with an overall 8years survival in both groups respectively: 64% and 53%. There was a trend towards more metastases in cT3, tumour diameter above 4cm, circumferential extension. There was a significant increase in the risk of metastases for ypT3, ypN1-2 and Dworak score 1-2-3. In multivariate analysis ypT3 was significantly associated with a high rate of metastases (55%; P=0.0003). CONCLUSION: The rate of distant metastases is a major prognostic factor. These clinical results will serve as the base line to identify a "biomolecular signature" which could complement the TN(M) classification.