Pisacane, Alberto; Cascardi, Eliano; Berrino, Enrico; Polidori, Alessio; Sarotto, Ivana; Casorzo, Laura; Panero, Mara; Boccaccio, Carla; Verginelli, Federica; Benvenuti, Silvia; Dellino, Miriam; Comoglio, Paolo; Montemurro, Filippo; Geuna, Elena; Marchiò, Caterina; Sapino, Anna
doi: 10.1007/s00428-022-03435-zpmid: 36346458
The aim of this study is to envisage a streamlined pathological workup to rule out CUPs in patients presenting with MUOs. Sixty-four MUOs were classified using standard histopathology. Clinical data, immunocytochemical markers, and results of molecular analysis were recorded. MUOs were histologically subdivided in clear-cut carcinomas (40 adenocarcinomas, 11 squamous, and 3 neuroendocrine carcinomas) and unclear-carcinoma features (5 undifferentiated and 5 sarcomatoid tumors). Cytohistology of 7/40 adenocarcinomas suggested an early metastatic cancer per se. In 33/40 adenocarcinomas, CK7/CK20 expression pattern, gender, and metastasis sites influenced tissue-specific marker selection. In 23/40 adenocarcinomas, a “putative-immunophenotype” of tissue of origin addressed clinical-diagnostic examinations, identifying 9 early metastatic cancers. Cell lineage markers were used to confirm squamous and neuroendocrine differentiation. Pan-cytokeratins were used to confirm the epithelial nature of poorly differentiated tumors, followed by tissue and cell lineage markers, which identified one melanoma. In total, 47/64 MUOs (73.4%) were confirmed CUP. Molecular analysis, feasible in 37/47 CUPs (78.7%), had no diagnostic impact. Twenty CUP patients, mainly with squamous carcinomas and adenocarcinomas with putative-gynecologic-immunophenotypes, presented with only lymph node metastases and had longer median time to progression and overall survival (< 0.001), compared with patients with other metastatic patterns. We propose a simplified histology-driven workup which could efficiently rule out CUPs and identify early metastatic cancer.
Pisacane, Alberto; Cascardi, Eliano; Berrino, Enrico; Polidori, Alessio; Sarotto, Ivana; Casorzo, Laura; Panero, Mara; Boccaccio, Carla; Verginelli, Federica; Benvenuti, Silvia; Dellino, Miriam; Comoglio, Paolo; Montemurro, Filippo; Geuna, Elena; Marchiò, Caterina; Sapino, Anna
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Xu, Bin; Lubin, Daniel J.; Dogan, Snjezana; Ghossein, Ronald A.; Viswanathan, Kartik
doi: 10.1007/s00428-022-03422-4pmid: 36346459
Poorly differentiated thyroid carcinoma (PDTC), defined by Turin criteria, comprises a subset of high-grade follicular-derived thyroid carcinomas with intermediate prognosis. While differentiated oncocytic thyroid carcinomas demonstrate clinicopathologic and genetic differences compared to their non-oncocytic counterparts, similar data is limited in oncocytic (Hurthle) PDTCs (OPDTCs). Here, we assessed the impact of various oncocytic cut-offs in PDTCs on clinical, histologic and survival parameters.Our bi-institutional cohort comprised 210 primary PDTCs with available slides reviewed by at least one pathologist. Histologic features, including oncocytic fraction, were recorded. Clinicopathologic data were obtained, including overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS), disease-specific survival (DSS), locoregional recurrence free survival (LRRFS), and distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS). Radioactive iodine avidity data was available for 125 PDTCs based on postoperative whole-body scanning.Within our cohort, 39.0% PDTCs had any oncocytic component with 24.8% meeting the 75% World Health Organization (WHO) oncocytic definition. Any oncocytic component and > 25% oncocytic cut-off correlated with decreased DSS and LRRFS, respectively, compared to non-oncocytic PDTCs (NOPDTCs) on univariate and multivariate analysis. The 100% oncocytic cut-off was significant for DSS on univariate analysis but a non-significant trend on multivariate analysis. Any oncocytic cut-off (100%, > 75%, > 50%, > 25%, or > 0%) conferred higher radioactive iodine (RAI)-refractoriness to OPDTCs compared to NOPDTCs. NF1 and PTEN alterations were enriched in OPDTCs (40% vs. 0%, and 60% vs 8%, respectively), whereas NRAS mutations were frequent in NOPDTCs (47% vs. 7%).Among PDTCs, the presence of oncocytes led to downward trend in all outcome parameters, especially for DSS and LRRFS. OPDTCs were enriched in NF1 and PTEN mutations. Consistently, all oncocytic cut-offs were associated with RAI-refractoriness. Accordingly, additional studies are needed to reassess the current 75% cut-off used to define oncocytic thyroid lesions.
Bilé-Silva, Andreia; Lopez-Beltran, Antonio; Rasteiro, Henrique; Vau, Nuno; Blanca, Ana; Gomez, Enrique; Gaspar, Frederico; Cheng, Liang
doi: 10.1007/s00428-022-03481-7pmid: 36600115
We report on the clinicopathologic features of 27 pleomorphic giant cell carcinoma (PGCC) cases of the prostate identified in 20 patients with an age range of 51 to 84 years (68 ± 9; median 71 years). Charlson comorbidity index ranged from 3 to 12. Serum PSA ranged from 4.30 to 662 ng/mL (median 13 ng/mL). On histologic examination, bizarre giant cells with pleomorphic nuclei characterized pleomorphic giant cell carcinoma of the prostate. PGCC component was present in 5% to 100%, with half of the patients presenting with ≥ 20%. Half of the patients initially presented with T4 and 26% with T3 disease. All patients were considered Gleason scores of 9 to 10 (ISUP grade 5). A combination of hormone therapy with chemotherapy with or without radiation therapy was applied in 68% of patients. On follow-up, 14 patients (52%) were alive with disease (1–69 months) or dead of disease (1–38 months). Patients diagnosed earlier with lower TNM stage had longer survival than those diagnosed at a later T-stage or with metastatic disease (p = 0.02). The percentage of PGCC was not related to survival in the current study. Molecular alterations in 3 samples showed a microsatellite-stable disease with low tumor mutation burden and variable PTEN, PTCH1, KDM6A, ARv7, and PIK3CA loss/alteration, TP53 mutation, TMPRSS2-ERG fusion, and MYC, PIK3CB, RICTOR, or IRS2 amplification. Our findings suggest that PGCC is a rare and aggressive subtype of prostate carcinoma whose recognition may steer clinicians to adopt more aggressive treatments and investigate new therapeutic strategies.
Agaimy, Abbas; Kasajima, Atsuko; Stoehr, Robert; Haller, Florian; Schubart, Christoph; Tögel, Lars; Pfarr, Nicole; von Werder, Alexander; Pavel, Marianne E.; Sessa, Fausto; Uccella, Silvia; La Rosa, Stefano; Klöppel, Günter
doi: 10.1007/s00428-022-03484-4pmid: 36690805
Ectopic Cushing syndrome is a rare clinical disorder resulting from excessive adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) produced by non-pituitary neoplasms, mainly neuroendocrine neoplasms (NENs) of the lung, pancreas, and gastrointestinal tract, and other less common sites. The genetic background of ACTH-producing NENs has not been well studied. Inspired by an index case of ACTH-producing pancreatic NEN carrying a gene fusion, we postulated that ACTH-producing NENs might be enriched for gene fusions. We herein examined 21 ACTH-secreting NENs of the pancreas (10), lung (9), thymus (1), and kidney (1) using targeted RNA sequencing. The tumors were classified according to the most recent WHO classification as NET-G1/typical carcinoid (n = 4), NETG-2/atypical carcinoid (n = 14), and NET-G3 (n = 3). Overall, targeted RNA sequencing was successful in 11 cases (4 of 10 pancreatic tumors, 5 of 9 pulmonary tumors, and in the one renal and one thymic tumor). All four successfully tested pancreatic tumors revealed a gene fusion: two had a EWSR1::BEND2 and one case each had a KMT2A::BCOR and a TFG::ADGRG7 fusion, respectively. EWSR1 rearrangements were confirmed in both tumors with a EWSR1::BEND2 by FISH. Gene fusions were mutually exclusive with ATRX, DAXX, and MEN1 mutations (the most frequently mutated genes in NETs) in all four cases. Using RNA-based variant assessment (n = 16) or via the TSO500 panel (n = 5), no pathogenic BCOR mutations were detected in any of the cases. Taken together, gene fusions were detected in 4/4 (100%) pancreatic versus 0/7 (0%) non-pancreatic tumors, respectively. These results suggest a potential role for gene fusions in triggering the ACTH production in pancreatic NENs presenting with ectopic Cushing syndrome. While the exact mechanisms responsible for the ectopic ACTH secretion are beyond the scope of this study, overexpressed fusion proteins might be involved in promoter-mediated overexpression of pre-ACTH precursors in analogy to the mechanisms postulated for EWSR1::CREB1-mediated paraneoplastic phenomena in certain mesenchymal neoplasms. The genetic background of the ACTH-producing non-pancreatic NENs remains to be further studied.
Yang, Zhongyi; Wang, Xiyue; Xiang, Jinxi; Zhang, Jun; Yang, Sen; Wang, Xinran; Yang, Wei; Li, Zhongyu; Han, Xiao; Liu, Yueping
doi: 10.1007/s00428-023-03502-zpmid: 36823229
Prostate cancer (PCa) is a significant health concern in aging males, and the diagnosis depends primarily on histopathological assessments to determine tumor size and Gleason score. This process is highly time-consuming, subjective, and relies on the extensive experience of the pathologists. Deep learning based artificial intelligence shows an ability to match pathologists on many prostate cancer diagnostic scenarios. However, it is easy to make mistakes on some hard cases with small tumor areas considering the extensively high-resolution of whole slide images (WSIs). The absence of fine-grained and large-scale annotations of such small tumor lesions makes this problem more challenging. Existing methods usually perform uniform cropping of the foreground of WSI and then use convolutional neural networks as the backbone network to predict the classification results. However, cropping can damage the structure of tiny tumors, which affects classification accuracy. To solve this problem, we propose an Intensive-Sampling Multiple Instance Learning Framework (ISMIL), which focuses on tumor regions and improves the recognition of small tumor regions by intensively sampling the crucial regions. Experiments of prostate cancer detection show that our method achieves an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.987 on the PANDA sets, which improves recall by at least 33% with higher specificity over the current primary methods for hard cases. The ISMIL also demonstrates comparable abilities to human experts on the prostate cancer grading task. Moreover, ISMIL has shown good robustness in independent cohorts, which makes it a potential tool to improve the diagnostic efficiency of pathologists.
Hongo, Takahiro; Yamamoto, Hidetaka; Kuga, Ryosuke; Komune, Noritaka; Miyazaki, Masaru; Tsuchihashi, Nana Akagi; Noda, Teppei; Matsumoto, Nozomu; Oda, Yoshinao; Nakagawa, Takashi
doi: 10.1007/s00428-023-03497-7pmid: 36705751
Streich, Sebastian; Frauenfeld, Leonie; Otto, Franziska; Mankel, Barbara; Bonzheim, Irina; Fend, Falko; Quintanilla-Martinez, Leticia
doi: 10.1007/s00428-023-03516-7pmid: 36810796
Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is the most common B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (B-NHL) in adults. These lymphomas are classified according to gene expression profiling (GEP) into germinal center B-cell (GCB) and activated B-cell type (ABC). Recent studies have suggested new subtypes of large B-cell lymphoma, based on genetic and molecular alterations, among them is large B-cell lymphoma with IRF4-rearrangement (LBCL-IRF4). We used fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), GEP (using the DLBCL COO assay by HTG Molecular Inc), and next generation sequencing (NGS) to comprehensively characterize 30 cases of LBCLs located in Waldeyer’s ring in adult patients and to identify LBCL-IRF4. FISH revealed breaks of IRF4 in 2/30 cases (6.7%), BCL2 breaks in 6/30 cases (20.0%), and IGH breaks in 13/29 cases (44.8%). GEP classified 14 cases each as GCB or ABC subtype, and 2 cases remained unclassified; this was concordant with the immunohistochemistry (IHC) in 25/30 cases (83.3%). A subgrouping, based on GEP, was performed: group 1 included 14 GCB cases with the most frequent mutations in BCL2 and EZH2 in 6/14 cases (42.8%). The two cases with IRF4 rearrangement were assigned to this group by GEP and showed IRF4 mutations, supporting the diagnosis of LBCL-IRF4. Group 2 included 14 ABC cases; the most frequent mutations were CD79B and MYD88 identified in 5/14 patients (35.7%). Group 3 included 2 unclassifiable cases in which no molecular patterns were detected. Overall, LBCLs of Waldeyer’s ring in adult patients are a heterogeneous group, including LBCL-IRF4, which shares several features with cases in the pediatric population.
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Survival benefits or symptom alleviation from immune checkpoint blockade therapy can be seen in microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H) cases. However, genetic heterogeneity within a specific subgroup of MSI-H tumors may be associated with poor response and prognosis. We investigated the molecular changes and microsatellite status of the cases with heterogeneous MMR protein staining by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and next-generation sequencing (NGS). Data from 3723 patients with gastric cancer were retrospectively analyzed to determine the mismatch repair (MMR) status by performing immunohistochemical staining of four major MMR proteins (MLH1, PMS2, MSH2, and MSH6). When heterogeneous MMR protein staining result was positive, PCR and NGS were performed. Heterogeneous MMR protein staining was observed in 12 cases. In microsatellite stable (MSS) cases, TP53 mutation appeared to accompany heterogeneous staining (HS) of MLH1. However, TP53 variation was not observed with MSI-H occurrence. Cases showing heterogeneous MSH6 protein staining revealed MSH6 mutations. Some cases with the same MMR protein staining set had varying MSI results. In one case whose primary and metastatic foci presented MLH1-HS and PMS2-HS, the microsatellite status was classified as MSS and MSI-H, respectively. Moreover, HS was also found in multiple biopsies and surgical specimens. This study found a preliminary relationship between heterogeneously stained MSH6 or MLH1 proteins and their gene mutations, as well as between MSI-H/TP53 − and MSS/TP53 + tumors. The microsatellite status of patients with heterogeneous MMR protein staining is unpredictable. Given the heterogeneity of mismatch repair, microsatellite status should be assessed for all specimens if sufficient specimens can be obtained.
High-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) is a risk factor for the development of several head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs). However, there have been few reports of high-risk HPV infection in temporal bone squamous cell carcinomas (TBSCCs), and thus the prevalence and clinicopathologic significance of high-risk HPV in TBSCCs are still unclear. We retrospectively collected 131 TBSCCs and analyzed them for transcriptionally active high-risk HPV infection using messenger RNA in situ hybridization; we also assessed the utility of p16-immunohistochemistry (IHC) and Rb-IHC to predict HPV infection. Eighteen (13.7%) of the 131 TBSCCs were positive for p16-IHC, and five of them were positive for high-risk HPV infection (the estimated high-risk HPV positivity rate was 3.8% [5/131]). Interestingly, all five HPV-positive patients were male and had TBSCC on the right side. In the p16-IHC+/HPV+ cases (n = 5), the Rb-IHC showed a partial loss pattern (n = 4) or complete loss pattern (n = 1). In contrast, all p16-IHC-negative cases (n = 113) showed an Rb-IHC preserved pattern. The positive predictive value (PPV) of p16-IHC positivity for high-risk HPV infection was low at 27.8%, while the combination of p16-IHC+/Rb-IHC partial loss pattern showed excellent reliability with a PPV of 100%. The prognostic significance of high-risk HPV infection remained unclear. High-risk HPV-related TBSCC is an extremely rare but noteworthy subtype.