Decreased prevalence of asymptomatic choroidal metastasis in disseminated breast and lung cancer: argument against screening.

AIM: To determine the frequency of visually asymptomatic choroidal metastases in patients with disseminated breast and lung carcinomas in order to establish optimal patient management policies. METHODS: All patients with confirmed metastatic disease treated in our institution between January 2002 and December 2003 were invited to undergo a funduscopic examination and a B-scan ultrasound evaluation. RESULTS: Of the 169 study participants, 77 had breast cancer (64 with metastases in one organ and 13 with multiple-organ involvement) and 92 had lung cancer (85 with metastases in one organ and 7 with multiple-organ involvement). No patient with metastatic breast cancer and two patients with metastatic lung disease (each with multiple-organ involvement) were found to have choroidal metastases. The choroidal metastases were detected by both the funduscopic and ultrasound examinations. CONCLUSIONS: The 2.17% incidence of choroidal metastasis in disseminated lung cancer and the 0% incidence in disseminated breast cancer speaks against the practicality of screening for early detection of choroidal metastasis among these patients, even though it would lead to early implementation of appropriate, often vision saving, therapeutic management. Its low incidence probably testifies to progress achieved by enhanced systemic oncological treatment policies that have been introduced into routine patient management over the past few years.

Nuclear and cytoplasmic expression of ErbB-4 in prostate cancer.

PURPOSE: To evaluate cytoplasmic and nuclear ErbB-4 expression in prostate cancer specimens and its association with outcome. BASIC PROCEDURES: Specimens of 50 prostate cancer patients were investigated for ErbB-4 overexpression using Immunohistochemistry staining. Cytoplasmic and nuclear staining was graded as 0-3 according to its intensity. The prognostic parameters were tumor stage, PSA level, Gleason score, probability of positive lymph nodes (Partin's tables and Roach equation), and 5-year disease free survival (Kattan nomogram). MAIN FINDINGS: Overexpression of ErbB-4 (> or = 1) was detected in 30 (60%) patients and overexpression using cytoplasmic and nuclear staining was > or = 2 in 19 (38%) and 17 (34%) patients, respectively. In only one third of the specimens was there any similarity between the 2 types of staining. Advanced tumor stage, high pretreatment PSA levels and high Gleason scores were evenly distributed among the patients with low (< or = 1) and intermediate/high (> or = 2) ErbB-4 expression. The probability of lymph node involvement and 5-year disease free survival were similar in both types of staining. PRINCIPAL CONCLUSIONS: ErbB-4 was overexpressed (cytoplasmic and nuclear staining) in approximately one third of prostate cancer patients. The rate of similarity between the 2 staining types was only 33%: overexpression was evenly distributed among intermediate/high and low risk prostate cancer patients with both staining methods.

Effect of Chinese herbal therapy on breast cancer adenocarcinoma cell lines.

Despite the widespread use of medicinal herbs to prevent and treat many diseases, including cancer, there are insufficient scientific data on the safety and efficacy of the majority of herbal therapies. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of a unique Chinese herbal therapy (CHT) from controlled manufactured concentrated powders, on an in vitro model of breast cancer. Three breast adenocarcinoma cell lines (MDA-231, MDA-453, T47D) were exposed to CHT for 72 h. Cell viability was assessed by XTT (sodium 3'-[1-(phenylaminocarbonyl)-3, 4-tetra zolium]-bis(4-methoxy-6-nitro) benzene sulphonic acid hydrate) assay. Apoptosis and cell cycle stage were determined by fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) analysis. CHT decreased cell survival in a dose-dependent manner in all tested cell lines. FACS analysis of treated and non-treated T47D cells demonstrated that the inhibitory effect of CHT was associated with an increase in apoptosis. A randomized clinical trial is currently underway to investigate CHT as supplementary therapy for breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy.