Infantile myofibroma is a rare and benign tumour of children presenting in the head and neck region. Rendering a final diagnosis of infantile myofibroma can be challenging in the light of nonspecific clinical, radiological findings and its histopathological similarities with a number of neoplasms especially spindle cell tumours. In this paper we discuss a case of infantile myofibroma in a 2-month-old infant, enumerating the various differential entities that have to be eliminated in reaching its specific diagnosis and highlighting the importance of immunopositivity to vimentin and smooth muscle actin (SMA) in establishing its myofibroblastic differentiation.

Chorioangioma is a benign angioma of placenta arising from chorionic tissue. Large chorioangioma has unfavourable effects on both mother and fetus. We describe a case with large chorioangioma that had a poor outcome on the fetus. We also reviewed the literature on prognostic factors affecting fetal outcome.

Extraosseous Ewing's sarcoma/primitive neuroectodermal tumor (ES/PNET) is an uncommon, aggressive, and malignant tumor with a poor patient outcome. Its occurrence in the lesser sac is a rare event and to the best of our knowledge, has not been previously described. The present case was clinically and radiologically misdiagnosed as a pancreatic tumor/gastrointestinal stromal tumor. Histopathology revealed a tumor with "small round cells" that were positive for CD99, confirming the diagnosis of ES/PNET. This report highlights the importance of considering Ewing's sarcoma in the differential diagnosis of intraabdominal, extraintestinal masses.

Aims of the study were to evaluate the expression Cytokeratin 5/6(CK5/6) and Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) among triple negative breast cancers and high grade infiltrating duct carcinomas. Further to probe if triple negative phenotype can be a surrogate marker for basal phenotype and to correlate the expression of basal markers with disease free survivals among triple negative phenotype and high grade infiltrating duct carcinomas.

Methods

Expression of CK5/6 and EGFR were studied by Immunohistochemistry (IHC) in 31 triple negative and 19 non-triple negative high grade breast carcinomas.

Results

21 of the 31 triple negative phenotype (67.7%) breast carcinomas and 7 out of 19 non-triple negative (36.8%) breast carcinomas showed expression of basal markers (CK5/6 and/or over-expression of EGFR). There were statistically significant associations of all the basal-like tumors with negative hormonal status. The basal markers positive phenotype subjects had a shorter disease free interval as compared to basal markers negative phenotype subjects.

Conclusion

Basal-like breast carcinomas constitute a unique clinical and pathological entity, characterized by high tumor grade and a propensity for lack of ER, PR and HER2 expression. Basal phenotypes have a more aggressive course than non-basal phenotype. “Triple negative” status cannot be used as a surrogate for “basal marker expression”.

Pleomorphic hyalinizing angiectatic tumor (PHAT) of soft parts is a low grade, rare, soft tissue tumor which commonly occurs on the lower extremities of adults of either sex, though lesions in other anatomic locations have been described. We present a case of a 65-year-old female patient who presented with a left forearm swelling and underwent a wide local excision. Histopathology revealed it to be a PHAT.

Carney complex is a very rare multiple neoplasia syndrome with cardiac, cutaneous, and neural tumours with a variety of pigmented lesion of skin. We are reporting a rare case of carney complex in which left atrial myxoma with superficial angiomyxoma, giant cell tumour of bone and lentigines showed a unique association. This patient underwent successful surgical excision of left atrial myxoma under cardiopulmonary bypass.

Background

Anchorage independent growth is an important hallmark of oncogenic transformation. Previous studies have shown that when adhesion dependent fibroblasts were prevented from adhering to a substrate they underwent anoikis. In the present study we have demonstrated how anoikis resistant cells gain the transformation related properties with sequential selection of genes. We have proposed this process as a model system for selection of transformed cells from normal cells.

Results

This report demonstrates that some fibroblasts can survive during late stages of anoikis, at which time they exhibit transformation-associated properties such as in vitro colony formation in soft agar and in vivo subcutaneous tumour formation in nude mice. Cytogenetic characterisation of these cells revealed that they contained a t (2; 2) derivative chromosome and they have a selective survival advantage in non adherent conditions. Gene expression profile indicated that these cells over expressed genes related to hypoxia, glycolysis and tumor suppression/metastasis which could be helpful in their retaining a transformed phenotype.

Conclusion

Our results reveal some new links between anoikis and cell transformation and they provide a reproducible model system which can potentially be useful to study multistage cancer and to identify new targets for drug development.

The common cause of mental impairment and the wide range of physical abnormalities is balanced chromosome rearrangement. As such, it is difficult to interpret, posing as a diagnostic challenge in human development. We present a unique familial case report with the paternally inherited autosomal-balanced reciprocal translocation involving chromosomal regions 8q and 18q. The etiology of the translocation, i.e. 46,XX,t(8;18)(q22.1;q22) was detected by conventional high-resolution Giemsa–Trypsin–Giemsa-banding and fluorescence in situ hybridization techniques. The father was found to be the carrier of the chromosome defect and also the same was observed in the first female child referred with a history of delayed milestone development. However, the second female child showed normal 46, XX karyotype. This is the first report of reciprocal translocation involving 8q and 18q associated with the delayed milestone development. The reason likely may be due to the rearrangement of genetic material at these breakpoints having a crucial relationship and thus manifesting developmental delay in the progeny. Accordingly, this paper also shows genetic counseling discussion for the cause.