Plasma coenzyme Q10 concentrations in breast cancer: prognosis and therapeutic consequences.

BACKGROUND: Coenzyme Q10 or ubiquinone is a redox component of the respiratory chain, which may be involved in the pathogenesis of cancer. METHODS: In order to better understand the role of this vitamin in the pathogenesis of breast cancer, a clinical trial including 200 women hospitalized for the biopsy and/or the ablation of a breast tumor was conducted. Ubiquinone plasma concentrations were determined simultaneously with vitamin E plasma concentrations (as antioxidant reference) by HPLC. RESULTS: A coenzyme Q10 deficiency was noted both in carcinomas (80 patients) and non-malignant lesions (120 patients), while vitamin E concentrations were within the normal range. A correlation was shown between the intensity of the deficiency and the bad prognosis of the breast disease based on high TNM and SBR values or the lack of estrogen receptors. However, neither cathepsin D level nor adenopathy invasion was related to ubiquinone levels. CONCLUSIONS: Since prooxidants may promote tumorigenesis, ubiquinone supplementation in breast cancer could be relevant.

[Medical treatment of mastopathies at risk]. / Traitements médicaux des mastopathies à risque.

Benign mastopathies constitute a very heterogeneous group of breast disorders in which various intricate pictures on the clinical as well as on the histological level are frequently (if not usual) observed. This explains the difficulties in drawing a classification which would be an answer to the clinician's diagnostic and therapeutic preoccupations. Mastopathies said to be "at risk" constitute a sub-group in which the forms can possibly evolves from a benign lesion into a cancer. They have been identified only about fifteen years ago (for example, the works of Haagensen, Wellings and Rywlin). Their definition, their incidence and especially their significance in terms of risk of breast cancer have been described with precision by W.D. Dupont and D. Page in 1985. They consist of proliferating mastopathies with atypical hyperplasia. The knowledge of these mastopathies at risk has logically opened the perspective of a primary prevention of breast cancers by their treatment. Unfortunately, the first difficulty appears right away: one cannot prescribe a treatment without a diagnosis, or that of epithelial hyperplasias rest only on anatomopathological criteria in the absence of radiological and clinical signs or pathognomonic scans. Therefore, the diagnosis is always the result of a preliminary surgical action whose indications are varied and non specific. The second difficulty rests on the fact that there is no certainty that the mastopathies "at risk" constitute a compulsory link in the passage from a normal cell to a cancerous one.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

[Computing in gynaecology. Diagnosing cervical cancer]. / Informatique en gynécologie. Constitution du dossier "cancer du col".

After having proposed, in a previous paper, a coelioscopy examination card that can be computerized, the authors have devised here a similar trial applicable to carcinoma of the uterine cervix. It appeared necessary to establish three different cards, namely: identification and previous history; colpocytology; invasive carcinoma... in order to cover up the totality of data required for diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of such patients.