Assessment of perineural infiltration and spread of oral squamous cell carcinoma: a clinicohistopathologic study

BACKGROUND

As the tumor spreads through the pathway of least resistance, the present study was carried out to evaluate the presence of perineural infiltration and spread of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) along the perineural spaces in gingivobuccal sulcus tumors infiltrating into the mandible.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

(1) To investigate the incidence of perineural invasion of OSCC along the inferior alveolar nerve and (2) to investigate the neurovascular bundle as a potential route of spread of OSCC.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Twenty-six patients with histopathologically proven OSCC of the gingivobuccal sulcus with radiographic infiltration of the mandible were included. The surgical specimens were decalcified and serially sectioned. Each section was stained with hematoxylin and eosin and was screened for the presence of perineural invasion and spread. Results : Twenty-five specimens showed perineural infiltration but none of the cases showed perineural spread along the inferior alveolar canal. Also, not all cases showed any neurologic deficit. Follow-up of these cases showed early recurrence (6-8 months) in the study group.

CONCLUSION

Perineural infiltration is present in OSCC but perineural spread along the inferior alveolar canal is absent. It is a bad prognostic indicator.

Effect of helium-neon laser irradiation on hair follicle growth cycle of Swiss albino mice

We report the results of a study carried out to investigate the effect of helium-neon (He-Ne) laser (632.8 nm) irradiation on the hair follicle growth cycle of testosterone-treated and untreated mice. Both histology and optical coherence tomography (OCT) were used for the measurement of hair follicle length and the relative percentage of hair follicles in different growth phases. A positive correlation (R = 0.96) was observed for the lengths of hair follicles measured by both methods. Further, the ratios of the lengths of hair follicles in the anagen and catagen phases obtained by both methods were nearly the same. However, the length of the hair follicles measured by both methods differed by a factor of 1.6, with histology showing smaller lengths. He-Ne laser irradiation (at approximately 1 J/cm(2)) of the skin of both the control and the testosterone-treated mice was observed to lead to a significant increase (p < 0.05) in % anagen, indicating stimulation of hair growth. The study also demonstrates that OCT can be used to monitor the hair follicle growth cycle, and thus hair follicle disorders or treatment efficacy during alopecia.

A comparative study to evaluate the effect of honey dressing and silver sulfadiazene dressing on wound healing in burn patients

To compare the effect of honey dressing and silver-sulfadiazene (SSD) dressing on wound healing in burn patients. Patients (n=78) of both sexes, with age group between 10 and 50 years and with first and second degree of burn of less than 50% of TBSA (Total body surface area) were included in the study, over a period of 2 years (2006-08). After stabilization, patients were randomly attributed into two groups: 'honey group' and 'SSD group'. Time elapsed since burn was recorded. After washing with normal saline, undiluted pure honey was applied over the wounds of patients in the honey group (n=37) and SSD cream over the wounds of patients in SSD group (n=41), everyday. Wound was dressed with sterile gauze, cotton pads and bandaged. Status of the wound was assessed every third and seventh day and on the day of completion of study. Patients were followed up every fortnight till epithelialization. The bacteriological examination of the wound was done every seventh day. The mean age for case (honey group) and control (SSD group) was 34.5 years and 28.5 years, respectively. Wound swab culture was positive in 29 out of 36 patients who came within 8 hours of burn and in all patients who came after 24 hours. The average duration of healing in patients treated with honey and SSD dressing at any time of admission was 18.16 and 32.68 days, respectively. Wound of all those patients (100%) who reported within 1 hour became sterile with honey dressing in less than 7 days while none with SSD. All of the wounds became sterile in less than 21 days with honey, while tthis was so in only 36.5% with SSD treated wounds. The honey group included 33 patients reported within 24 hour of injury, and 26 out of them had complete outcome at 2 months of follow-up, while numbers for the SSD group were 32 and 12. Complete outcome for any admission point of time after 2 months was noted in 81% and 37% of patients in the honey group and the SSD group. Honey dressing improves wound healing, makes the wound sterile in lesser time, has a better outcome in terms of prevention of hypertrophic scarring and post-burn contractures, and decreases the need of debridement irrespective of time of admission, when compared to SSD dressing.

Circulating tumor DNA in plasma of breast cancer patients from India

e22213

Background: Recently, breast cancer has become the most common cancer among women in all urban population in India. Annually about 80000 new cases and 40000 deaths occur and majority of breast cancers are pre-menopausal. Conventional diagnostic methods are not very sensitive especially in early stages of cancer. This necessitated a more sensitive and reliable method for early diagnosis leading to effective treatment, better prognosis and survival. Recently, the level of cell free circulating tumor DNA in blood plasma or serum of patients with variety of tumors are being considered as reliable non-invasive diagnostic tool but no study has been done in India. The present study has therefore been undertaken to evaluate clinical utility of cell free DNA as potential biomarkers for early diagnosis and management of breast cancer. Methods: 25 newly diagnosed untreated breast cancer patients and 25 healthy subjects having no sign of significant medical illness with informed consent were enrolled for the study. 9 patients after chemotherapy were also included in the study. Blood plasma collected from both patients and controls were employed for DNA isolation, using Qiagen kit. Concentration of cell free plasma DNA was analyzed by 3 methods viz. nanodrop spectro-photometry, integrated density value (IDV) of PCR products of Exon 7 of p53 gene and quantitative real time PCR (cycles threshold converted to genome equivalent). All values of DNA concentration obtained by three methods used as continuous variables and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) were plotted and the cut-of value was determined at 90% sensitivity and 100% specificity level of ROC. Results: Mean free plasma DNA concentration as determined by both Q-RT PCR and IDV in cancer patients was found to be significantly higher in advanced stage breast cancer patients than in controls (genome equivalent 18850 vs 431; IDV 17912 vs 4197; p=0.001). However, no significant difference could be observed in early stage disease as compared to controls possibly due small sample size. Conclusions: Free Plasma DNA concentration is a reliable molecular marker for detection of breast cancer and can serve as a prognostic indicator leading to its potential clinical application either alone or in combination with other conventional methods.

No significant financial relationships to disclose.

Incidence of MRSA surgical-site infection in MRSA carriers in an orthopaedic trauma unit

We examined the incidence of infection with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in patients admitted to the Leicester Royal Infirmary Trauma Unit between January 2004 and June 2006. The influence of MRSA status at the time of their admission was examined, together with age, gender and diagnosis, using multi-variant analysis. Of 2473 patients, 79 (3.2%) were MRSA carriers at the time of admission and 2394 (96.8%) were MRSA-negative. Those carrying MRSA at the time of admission were more likely to develop surgical site infection with MRSA (7 of 79 patients, 8.8%) than non-MRSA carriers (54 of 2394 patients, 2.2%, p < 0.001). Further analysis showed that hip fracture and increasing age were also risk factors with a linear increase in relative risk of 1.8% per year.

MRSA carriage at admission, age and the pathology are all associated with an increased rate of developing MRSA wound infection. Identification of such risk factors at admission helps to target health-care resources, such the use of glycopeptide antibiotics at induction and the ‘building-in’ of increased vigilance for wound infection pre-operatively.

Pollution, contamination and future land use at Brookhaven National Laboratory

Scientists interested in contamination normally deal only with pollution itself, not with people's perceptions of pollution or the relationship between pollution and land use. The overall objective of this article was to examine the relationship between people's perceptions of pollution and their views on future land use. People were interviewed at an Earth Day Festival near the Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) on Long Island, New York. On an open-ended question, people thought that BNL should be left as it is, or maintained as a preserve, park or conservation area, or used for environmental research. Almost no one thought that it should be used for housing or industrial purposes. When asked to rate a list of possible future land uses, maintaining BNL as a National Environmental Research Park for research and for recreation were rated the highest (nuclear storage was rated the lowest). This was consistent with the subjects' views that pollution was the greatest concern about BNL. The congruence between perceptions about concerns or problems and future land use preferences suggests a unified view of management of contaminated sites, such as BNL, at least among a group of people whose environmental interests were evident by their presence at the event.

Effect of endotoxin on the immunity of Indian major carp, Labeo rohita

Endotoxin, a lipopolysaccharide component of outer cell wall membrane of the Gram-negative bacteria is a factor responsible for a number of biological effects including immunostimulatory activities in different animal species including fish. In this study, L. rohita yearlings of weight ranging from 80 to 100g were injected intraperitoneally with 0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10 and 20 EU/fish dose of endotoxin to find out its effect on the immunity. The L. rohita yearlings were found to resist the endotoxin dose up to 20 EU/fish and at the lower doses, i.e., at 1 and 2 EU/fish; it acted as an immune potentiator. Different serum and immune parameters like protein, globulin, lysozyme, respiratory burst activity, myeloperoxidase activity, natural agglutination titre were found to be significantly high (p<0.01) at a dose of 1 EU/fish. While at 10 and 20 EU/fish, most of these parameters were lower thereby indicating the immuno-suppressive nature of the endotoxin at these higher doses.

Zuckerkandl's organ improves long-term survival and function of neural stem cell derived dopaminergic neurons in Parkinsonian rats

Transplantation of neural stem cells (NSC) derived dopamine (DA) neurons has emerged as an alternative approach to fetal neural cell transplantation in Parkinson's disease (PD). However, similar to fetal neural cell, survival of these neurons following transplantation is also limited due to limited striatal reinnervation (graft with dense neuronal core), limited host-graft interaction, poor axonal outgrowth, lack of continuous neurotrophic factors supply and principally an absence of cell adhesion molecules mediated appropriate developmental cues. In the present study, an attempt has been made to increase survival and function of NSC derived DA neurons, by co-grafting with Zuckerkandl's organ (a paraneural organ that expresses neurotrophic factors as well as cell adhesion molecules); to provide continuous NTF support and developmental cues to transplanted DA neurons in the rat model of PD. 24 weeks post transplantation, a significant number of surviving functional NSC derived DA neurons were observed in the co-transplanted group as evident by an increase in the number of tyrosine hydroxylase immunoreactive (TH-IR) neurons, TH-IR fiber density, TH-mRNA expression and TH-protein level at the transplantation site (striatum). Significant behavioral recovery (amphetamine induced stereotypy and locomotor activity) and neurochemical recovery (DA-D2 receptor binding and DA and DOPAC levels at the transplant site) were also observed in the NSC+ZKO co-transplanted group as compared to the NSC or ZKO alone transplanted group. In vivo results were further substantiated by in vitro studies, which suggest that ZKO increases the NSC derived DA neuronal survival, differentiation, DA release and neurite outgrowth as well as protects against 6-OHDA toxicity in co-culture condition. The present study suggests that long-term and continuous NTF support provided by ZKO to the transplanted NSC derived DA neurons, helped in their better survival, axonal arborization and integration with host cells, leading to long-term functional restoration in the rat model of PD.

Imatinib mesylate and nilotinib (AMN107) exhibit high-affinity interaction with ABCG2 on primitive hematopoietic stem cells

The majority of chronic phase chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) patients treated with the tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) imatinib mesylate maintain durable responses to the drug. However, most patients relapse after withdrawal of imatinib and advanced stage patients often develop drug resistance. As CML is considered a hematopoietic stem cell cancer, it has been postulated that inherent protective mechanisms lead to relapse in patients. The ATP binding-cassette transporters ABCB1 (MDR-1; P-glycoprotein) and ABCG2 are highly expressed on primitive hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and have been shown to interact with TKIs. Herein we demonstrate a dose-dependent, reversible inhibition of ABCG2-mediated Hoechst 33342 dye efflux in primary human and murine HSC by both imatinib and nilotinib (AMN107), a novel aminopyrimidine inhibitor of BCR-ABL. ABCG2-transduced K562 cells were protected from imatinib and nilotinib-mediated cell death and from downregulation of P-CRKL. Moreover, photoaffinity labeling revealed interaction of both TKIs with ABCG2 at the substrate binding sites as they compete with the binding of [(125)I] IAAP and also stimulate the transporter's ATPase activity. Therefore, our evidence suggests for the role of ABC transporters in resistance to TKI on primitive HSCs and CML stem cells and provides a rationale how TKI resistance can be overcome in vivo.