Uterine embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma in adult women: a case report on the challenging diagnosis and treatment.

BACKGROUND: Uterine embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma (uERMS) in adult women is a very rare malignant entity. The study aim was to report a case of adult uERMS and to discuss the implications of histopathological diagnosis on the treatment and prognosis. CASE PRESENTATION: We present here the clinicopathological features of a uERMS case in an adult woman. The study has been approved by the institutional Ethics Committee and an informed consent has been obtained (IJB∕CE3005). A 45-year-old woman presented to her gynecologist with intermenstrual bleedings and polypoid cervical mass (initially interpreted as benign polyp). A second biopsy was sent to our Department of Pathology at the Jules Bordet Institute, Brussels, Belgium for revision and was reinterpreted as botryoid-type uERMS. The patient underwent a total hysterectomy. The final pathology confirms a 3 cm cervical ERMS, and a simple surveillance was decided by our multidisciplinary team. Six months later, pelvic magnetic resonance imaging control showed a recurrence in the right pelvic lymph nodes. Multi-drug chemotherapy and radiotherapy were done before surgical resection. Pathological examination of the resected pelvic mass confirmed uERMS recurrence of 60 mm, with large zones of necrosis and the presence of cartilaginous structures. The patient is free of disease 60 months after diagnosis. CONCLUSIONS: Adult uERMS is rare and the pathological examination is the main element for diagnosis and treatment. It is often confused with other benign entities, at least at the time of diagnosis. ERMS should be included in the differential diagnosis of cervical and uterine polyp of adult women. Long-term survival is possible with a multimodal therapy approach.

Post-Neoadjuvant Treatment Strategies for Patients with Early Breast Cancer.

Pre-surgical treatments in patients with early breast cancer allows a direct estimation of treatment efficacy, by comparing the tumor and the treatment. Patients who achieve a pathological complete response at surgery have a better prognosis, with lower risk of disease recurrence and death. Hence, clinical research efforts have been focusing on high-risk patients with residual disease at surgery, who may be "salvaged" through additional treatments administered in the post-neoadjuvant setting. In the present review, we aim to illustrate the development and advantages of the post-neoadjuvant setting, and to discuss the available strategies for patients with early breast cancer, either approved or under investigation. This review was written after literature search on main scientific databases (e.g., PubMed) and conference proceedings from major oncology conferences up to 1 August 2022. T-DM1 and capecitabine are currently approved as post-neoadjuvant treatments for patients with HER2-positive and triple-negative breast cancer, respectively, with residual disease at surgery. More recently, other treatment strategies have been approved for patients with high-risk early breast cancer, including the immune checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab, the PARP inhibitor olaparib and the CDK 4/6 inhibitor abemaciclib. Novel agents and treatment combinations are currently under investigation as promising post-neoadjuvant treatment strategies.

Primary invasive ductal carcinoma of axillary accessory breast.

Primary accessory breast cancer is an extremely rare pathology, representing less than 1 % of all breast cancers, and it is found in more than 90 % of cases in the axilla. The diagnosis of accessory axillary breast cancer (AABC) is often late and at an advanced stage with an average delay of 40.5 months. Histological sampling and immunohistochemical results confirm the diagnosis. Most patients are diagnosed with stage II disease or higher, so it is considered to have a poor prognosis. There is no specific management for AABC; it follows the guidelines for orthotopic pectoral breast cancer. We therefore report the case of a 50-year-old woman diagnosed with grade II invasive ductal carcinoma found in accessory axillary breast, treated by wide local resection and sentinel lymph node dissection.

Persistent Left Superior Vena Cava Associated with Right Aberrant Subclavian Artery Detected during Totally Implantable Vascular Access Device Insertion.

Introduction Persistent left superior vena cava (PLSVC) is a rare vascular malformation, with several cases reported in the English literature. The diagnosis is made incidentally, during cardiovascular imaging or when a catheter is placed in the left jugular or subclavian vein. They are without associated hemodynamic alterations, except if they have left atrial drainage or an associated dilation of the coronary sinus. If necessary, long-term PSLVC catheterization with right atrial drainage is safe. Case Presentation We report the case of 40-year-old man, admitted for placement of totally implantable vascular access device (TIVAD) on the same day of his first chemotherapy. A disease localized to the right neck made it impossible to puncture on the right. During the puncture of the left internal jugular vein, the diagnosis of PLSVC was made. Postoperative investigations confirmed the diagnosis and showed the presence of the right superior vena cava to which it was connected by the left brachiocephalic vein. They also confirmed the drainage of PLSVC into the coronary sinus. In addition, they demonstrated the presence of an associated right aberrant subclavian artery of direct aortic origin. Chemotherapy was administered safely and the port was removed 9 months after insertion without any problem. Conclusion This is one of the rare cases reported in the English literature of PLSVC diagnosed during TIVAD insertion and the first to report an associated vascular malformation. We publish it to encourage physicians to think about this differential diagnosis and to carefully perform the appropriate investigations before using the port.

Primary Breast Tuberculosis Mastitis Manifested as Nonhealing Abscess.

Primary breast tuberculosis (TB) is a rare extrapulmonary TB mainly affecting young women of childbearing age from endemic countries. Its incidence is increasing in immunocompromised and HIV-infected people and with the emergence of drug-resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB). There are no specific clinical signs suggestive of this disease, it often presents as a hard mass or breast abscess. There is an overlap of features with other inflammatory, infectious, benign lesions, fat necrosis and malignant neoplasms of the breast. The detection of MTB remains the gold standard for diagnosis. Several other diagnostic modalities are used, with varying lack of sensitivity and specificity, and with a range of false negatives. A quarter of cases were treated solely on the basis of clinical, imaging or histological suspicion, without confirmation of the diagnosis. Therefore, we report the case of a young Vietnamese woman, presented for a nonhealing breast abscess, and diagnosed with breast TB based on the patient's ethnicity, histological findings, lack of clinical response to conventional antibiotic therapy, and a good clinical response to anti-TB treatment.

Incidental finding of solitary fibrous tumor of male breast: case report and review of literature.

Solitary fibrous tumor (SFT) of the breast is a rare mesenchymal tumor composed of spindle-shaped tumor cells with collagen and large blood vessels in the shape of a "staghorn". It is discovered anywhere in the human body, usually incidentally or through nonspecific symptoms. A combination of clinical, histological, and immunohistochemical features is required to establish a diagnosis. There are no proper guidelines for the treatment of SFTs because of their rarity; however, wide surgical excision remains the "gold standard". A multidisciplinary team approach is recommended. They are mostly benign with a 5-year survival rate of 89%. Following a PubMed-indexed English literature review, only six publications presenting nine cases of breast SFT in a male patient were found. The following is the case of a 73-year-old man who presented with dry cough. A SFT in the right breast was discovered incidentally during the investigative work up, and the patient was referred to our Breast Clinic at the Jules Bordet Institute, Brussels, Belgium, for appropriate treatment. The patient's presentation, imaging, and histological sample all supported the diagnosis, and he underwent uneventful surgical resection. Here, we present the first case of an incidental finding of a SFT of the male breast, with its diagnosis and therapeutic challenges.

Ex vivo indocyanine green fluorescence imaging for the detection of lymph node involvement in advanced-stage ovarian cancer.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of indocyanine green (ICG) fluorescence imaging (FI) for the ex vivo detection of metastatic lymph nodes (LNs) in advanced stage ovarian cancer (AOC). METHODS: Paraffin-embedded LNs from patients included in a previous ICG-FI study (Protocol NCT01834469) were further assessed for fluorescence. Intravenous injection of ICG was delivered intraoperatively. Tumor-to-background ratios (TBRs) were calculated. RESULTS: A total of 675 LNs from 19 patients were analyzed. The mean LN number per patient was 29.3 (median: 24; range 2-77). Seventy-three LNs were malignant (10.8%), 602 were benign (89.2%). The mean TBR of all LNs was 1.5 (SD 0.8). With a cut-off TBR of 1.3, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive, and negative predictive values of ICG-FI for retroperitoneal LNs were 80%, 41%, 2.8%, and 99%, respectively. On univariate analysis, only the fluorescence ratio (TBR ≥ 1.3) was correlated with malignancy at pathology (P = 0.03). No predictive factors of pathological LN status were found on multivariate analysis. CONCLUSIONS: Ex vivo ICG-FI of retroperitoneal LNs in AOC had good sensitivity but poor specificity. However, its high negative predictive value could make it an appropriate complementary tool to focus pathological analysis on fluorescent LNs.

The impact of breast MRI workup on tumor size assessment and surgical planning in patients with early breast cancer.

BACKGROUND: The size and focality of the primary tumor in breast cancer (BC) influence therapeutic decision making. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether preoperative breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is helpful for the assessment of tumor size and surgical planning in early BC. METHODS: We performed a retrospective review of a prospectively collected database of 174 patients treated at a single institution for invasive BC who had complete documentation of the tumor size from mammography (MMG), ultrasonography (US), and MRI. RESULTS: A total of 186 breast tumors were analyzed. Mean tumor size varied by imaging method: 14.7 mm by MMG, 13.8 mm by US, and 17.9 mm by MRI. The concordance between breast imaging techniques (BIT) and final pathology with a cutoff ≤ 2 mm was 34.8% for MRI, 32.1% for US, and 27.2% for MMG. US and MMG underestimated while MRI and MMG overestimated the real tumor size. Concordance was the same in premenopausal women for MRI and US at 35%, while concordance was higher in postmenopausal women for MRI. Correlations between size determined by BIT and histopathological size were best with MRI (0.59), compared to US (0.56) or MMG (0.42). Intrinsic subtypes of BC had different concordances according to imaging method, but no significant associations were found. MRI examination revealed additional lesions in 13.8% of patients, 69% of these lesions were malignant. MRI changed the surgical plan in 15 patients (8.6%), and the rate of mastectomy increased by 6.9%. CONCLUSIONS: MRI estimates BC tumor size more accurately than US or MMG, but a significant overestimation exists. Complementary MRI examination improved the concordance for tumor size between BIT and final pathology in 16.7%. MRI did not alter surgical planning for most patients and allowed more appropriate treatment for 8% of them.

ICG fluorescence imaging as a new tool for optimization of pathological evaluation in breast cancer tumors after neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

BACKGROUND: Response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT), particularly pathologic complete response (pCR), is an independent predictor of favorable clinical outcome in breast cancer (BC). The accuracy of residual disease measurement and reporting is of critical importance in treatment planning and prognosis for these patients. Currently, gross pathological evaluation of the residual tumor bed is the greatest determinant for accurate reporting of NACT response. Fluorescence imaging (FI) is a new technology that is being evaluated for use in the detection of tumors in different oncological conditions. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to evaluate whether indocyanine green fluorescence imaging (ICG-FI) is able to detect residual breast tumor tissue after NACT in breast surgical operative specimens. METHODS: Patients who underwent NACT for BC and were admitted for breast surgery were selected for participation in this study. Free ICG (0.25 mg/kg) was injected intraoperatively. Tumor-to-background fluorescence ratio (TBFR) was calculated on ex vivo samples from the surgical specimen. RESULTS: One hundred and seventy-two samples from nine breast surgical specimens were evaluated for their fluorescence intensity. Among them, 52 were malignant (30.2%) and 120 were benign (69.8%). The mean TBFR was 3.3 (SD 1.68) in malignant samples and 1.9 (SD 0.97) in benign samples (p = 0.0002). With a TBFR cut-off value of 1.3, the sensitivity, specificity, negative predictive value, false negative rate, and false positive rate of ICG-FI to predict residual tumoral disease in breast surgical samples post-NACT were 94.2%, 31.7%, 92.7%, 5.8%, and 68.3%, respectively. If we restricted our analysis to only patients who achieved pCR, the negative predictive value for ICG-FI was 100%. CONCLUSIONS: These first observations indicate that ex vivo ICG-FI is sensitive but not sufficiently specific to discriminate between benign breast tissue and malignant residual tissue. Nevertheless, its negative predictive value seems sufficiently accurate to exclude the presence of residual breast tumor tissue on the operative specimen of patients treated by NACT, representing a potential tool to assist pathologists in the assessment of breast surgical specimens.