Strong prognostic value of nodal and bone marrow micro-involvement in patients with pancreatic ductal carcinoma receiving no adjuvant chemotherapy

AIM: To study the prognostic value of adjuvant chemo-therapy in patients with pancreatic, ductal adenocar-cinoma.METHODS: Lymph nodes from 106 patients with resectable pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma were systematically sampled. A total of 318 lymph nodes classified histopathologically as tumor-free were examined using sensitive immunohistochemical assays. Forty-three (41%) of the 106 patients were staged as pT1/2, 63 (59%) as pT3/4, 51 (48%) as pN0, and 55 (52%) as pN1. The study population included 59 (56%) patients exhibiting G1/2, and 47 (44%) patients with G3 tumors. Patients received no adjuvant chemo- or radiation therapy and were followed up for a median of 12 (range: 3.5 to 139) mo.RESULTS: Immunostaining with Ber-EP4 revealed nodal microinvolvement in lymph nodes classified as “tumor free” by conventional histopathology in 73 (69%) out of the 106 patients. Twenty-nine (57%)of 51 patients staged histopathologically as pN0 had nodal microinvolvement. The five-year survival probability for pN0-patients was 54% for those without nodal microinvolvement and 0% for those with nodal microinvolvement. Cox-regression modeling revealed the independent prognostic effect of nodal microinvolvement on recurrence-free (relative risk 2.92, P = 0.005) and overall (relative risk 2.49, P = 0.009) survival.CONCLUSION: The study reveals strong and independent prognostic significance of nodal microinvolvement in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma who have received no adjuvant therapy. The addition of immunohistochemical findings to histopathology reports may help to improve risk stratification of patients with pancreatic cancer.

Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy of Bronchoalveolar Lavage Cytology in the Diagnosis of Lung Tumors and Contribution to the Classification of Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Entities:A Retrospective Clinocopathological Study

Background: Due to new therapeutic options in thoracic oncology, the pathological diagnosis of bronchial carcinoma has become more challenging. The majority of bronchial cancer is diagnosed from small biopsy specimens and the diagnosis often based on cytological methods. Aims: In this study, we reevaluated cytologic specimens in order to determine the diagnostic reliability of pulmonary cytopathologic techniques performed in our department. Material and methods: In our center bronchial lavage/bronchoalveolar lavage (BL/BAL) specimens are obtained both before and after forceps biopsy (FB) and subsequently processed. Retrospective data from a period of 60 months were retrieved from the institutional files. Sensitivity, specificity, as well as accuracy of cytological tumor typing were determined using histopathology of FB as gold standard. Also, the diagnostic yield of BL/BAL before and after FB was determined. Results: 678 cases were retrieved from the institutional files. The sensitivity and specificity of cytology were 83.0% and 83.4%, respectively. By FB in 3.9% of cytologically diagnosed non-small cell lung carcinomas (NSCLC) a histological assignment to a NSCLC entity was not possible. Conclusions: Cytology is a reliable diagnostic tool in the diagnosis of lung malignancies. High diagnostic accuracy is achieved by a combination of BL/BAL before and after FB. The diagnostic yield of BL/BAL after FB was significantly higher than BL/BAL before FB. Subsequent tumor typing of cytologically diagnosed NSCLC was feasible in more than 95% of cases.