Mammary mucinous cystadenocarcinoma with long-term follow-up: molecular information and literature review.

BACKGROUND: Mucinous cystadenocarcinoma (MCA) is a very rare form of breast cancer that was first described in 1998. Only 33 cases of primary MCA, including our present case, have been reported thus far. As a consequence, its molecular features, prognosis and treatment regimen are poorly known. Here, we describe a less common presentation of MCA, detail its molecular features, discuss the major differential diagnosis, and provide a brief review of the literature. CASE PRESENTATION: A 59-year-old woman presented with a breast lump in which mammography showed a well-defined nodule. Core needle biopsy (CNB) revealed several lesions lined by tall columnar cells with stratification and abundant mucinous secretion; excision was recommended for final diagnosis. The resected specimens showed cavities of different sizes without surrounding myoepithelial cells. The cavities were rich in mucus, and the nuclei were located at the base of the cells, containing intracellular mucus. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed that it was triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). Next-generation sequencing (NGS) revealed pathogenic mutations in the PIK3CA, KRAS, MAP2K4, RB1, KDR, PKHD1, TERT, and TP53 genes. A diagnosis of MCA was rendered. The patient has been followed up for 108 months to date and showed no signs of recurrence or metastasis. CONCLUSION: Our study presents the gene profile of an MCA case with no recurrence or metastatic tendency after 108 months of follow-up, and a review of the literature helps us better understand the clinical, pathologic, and molecular features of this tumor.

Ikaros is heterogeneously expressed in lung adenocarcinoma and is involved in its progression.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the present study was to assess the expression of the Ikaros transcription factor (IKZF1) in lung adenocarcinoma and investigate whether expression levels of Ikaros are correlated with lung adenocarcinoma progression. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective study of 325 cases of resected stage I pulmonary adenocarcinoma, in which histological subtyping was performed according to the 2015 World Health Organization classification. We performed immunohistochemical examinations to assess expression of Ikaros in pulmonary adenocarcinomas and evaluated the correlation between Ikaros expression and cancer progression. RESULTS: Immunohistochemical staining was heterogeneous, with the majority of well-differentiated and moderately differentiated lung adenocarcinomas being weakly positive and the majority of the poorly differentiated lung adenocarcinomas exhibiting strong positive staining. Higher expression of Ikaros was associated with tumor recurrence or metastasis. CONCLUSIONS: Ikaros is heterogeneously expressed in different subtypes of lung adenocarcinoma; higher expression of Ikaros was found to be associated with cancer progression.

Primary lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma of salivary glands: a clinicopathological study of 21 cases.

Lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma (LELC) of salivary glands is a rare kind tumor. In this study, the authors evaluated 21 patients with LELC of salivary glands who had long-term follow-up. Clinical characteristics, Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection, immunohistochemical features, oncoprotein expression, treatments, and outcomes were analyzed. All patients were Chinese. Their ages ranged from 20 to 73 years. All tumors showed the typical syncytial growth pattern of undifferentiated epithelial cells with a significant lymphocyte reaction. All of patients were found by in situ hybridization to have the EBV genome. All tumors showed positive immunostaining of AE1/AE3, CK5/6 and p63. Nearly all cases had bcl-2 oncoprotein expression, but the detection rate of p53, and c-erb B-2 expression was extremely low. LELC of salivary glands is a distinct entity of salivary cancer. LELC of salivary glands can receive multimodality treatment and has a better prognosis similar to that of nasopharyngeal carcinoma.