Asbestos Cancer Update 2008

Department of 2nd General cancer Surgery, Sisli Etfal Training and Research Hospital, Sisli, Istanbul, Turkey.

The malignancy risk is low in hot thyroid nodules verified by cancer scintigraphy. We present a rare cancer case of papillary carcinoma, initially treated as an autonomous hot nodule. Case cancer report. A 36-year old male cancer patient with a hot thyroid nodule and cancer subclinical hyperthyroidism was treated with 10mCi 131I. On admission, both 99mTc and 131I thyroid scintigraphic imaging revealed a hot nodule at the right lobe cancer accompanied by lower uptake in the remaining cancer thyroid tissue. After treatment, there was a cancer progressive increase in the nodule size; a fine needle aspiration biopsy was thus performed which showed findings cancer compatible with papillary thyroid cancer. The patient was referred to our department for further management. Total cancer thyroidectomy with right central neck dissection was performed. The pathologic examination showed that the whole nodule (1.5 cm diameter) was a columnary type papillary thyroid cancer. Conclusion: In the case of a small-sized toxic thyroid nodule, the possiblility of malignancy cannot be totally ruled out. Suspicious hot nodules should be cytologically evaluated before cancer radioactive iodine treatment to determine the existing malignancy risk. Fine needle aspiration biopsy should be performed in all hot thyroid nodules that increase in size after radioactive iodine treatment.

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Department of Neurosurgery, Hospital de Santa Maria, Lisbon, Portugal.

Papillary glioneuronal tumors (PGNTs) are rare lesions of the central nervous system, and no information exists on the genetic alterations in these neoplasms. The authors report on such a case in a child. Genetic studies revealed that the tumor was characterized by gains and structural alterations involving only chromosome 7 with breakpoints at 7p22. By using comparative genomic hybridization, the authors observed a high-level amplification region at 7p14~q12. Fluorescence in situ hybridization with a probe for EGFR revealed that this gene was not amplified. Similar to other patients with PGNTs, the patient in the present case fared well. From a genetic point of view the data in the present case are in accordance with previous findings of EGFR amplifications as uncommon in low-grade gliomas and gangliogliomas. Recurrent rearrangements of chromosome 7 have been noted in other mixed glioneuronal tumors. The data in this case suggest that genes located at chromosome 7 can also be involved in the pathogenesis of PGNT. In clinical terms it will be especially important to corroborate, through the analysis of further cases, the involvement of the chromosome 7p22 locus, a region where glial and neuronal linked genes (RAC1 and NXPH1) are known to be located.

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