UNASSIGNED: HER2-positive breast carcinomas (BCs) generally behave more aggressively and show higher cytological and histological grade than HER2-negative BCs. However, the clinical properties of HER2-positive early BCs have not been studied extensively. Hence, the therapeutic significance of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) for this BC remains debatable.
UNASSIGNED: We retrospectively examined the clinicopathological features of 94 HER2-positive early BCs who perioperatively received anti-HER2 drugs, without undergoing NAC prior to surgery.
UNASSIGNED: The patients\' five year-disease free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) rates were 95.6% and 100%, respectively. Univariate analysis demonstrated significant differences in distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) between clinical and pathological tumor stages (T stages). Pathological T1 stage and clinical T1 stage tumors showed significantly higher DMSF than pT2-3 and cT2-3 (p=0.0002 and 0.0294). Multivariate analysis disclosed no significant differences in DFS, OS, and DMFS with respect to preoperative clinical tumor stage, patient age, type of surgery, postoperative therapy, and pathological factors. Recurrences occurred in nine patients: four (4.3%) and five (5.3%) patients showed local and distant recurrences, respectively. One patient with cT2 BC died of disease. Interestingly, four of the five BCs with distant recurrence pathologically demonstrated lymph vessel invasion. The prognoses of patients with HER2-positive stage cT1/2N0M0 BC were highly favorable.
UNASSIGNED: The indications for NAC in small, localized, and node-negative HER2-positive BC should be carefully assessed based on the presence of a larger tumor size, postoperative pathological evaluation of tumor size, and lymph vessel invasion.

BACKGROUND: Cutaneous B-cell lymphoma (CBCL) is part of dermatopathological routine diagnostics. However, in contrast to cutaneous T-cell lymphomas, there are only a few studies on the prevalence and possible clinical impact of lymphatic vessel involvement. Therefore, this pilot study aimed to quantify the prevalence of lymphovascular involvement in CBCL and to assess the association between lymphovascular involvement and recurrence.
METHODS: Thirty-nine patients from two tertiary care hospitals diagnosed with CBCL were retrospectively identified and their biopsies were histopathologically examined for the presence of lymphatic vessel involvement using H&E stain, and CD20 and D2-40 immunohistochemistry. Clinical data were retrieved from our digital documentation files.
RESULTS: Thirty patients were included in the evaluation (nPCFCL  = 15, nPCMZL  = 10, and nPCLBCL  = 5). Lymphovascular involvement occurred in all three types of lymphoma and was present in 14/30 specimens. The presence of lymphatic involvement did not show a significant impact on recurrence rate (p = 0.150).
CONCLUSIONS: This immunohistochemical pilot study shows that lymphovascular involvement is a relatively frequent finding in primary CBCL. Although no definitive conclusion can be drawn from our findings because of the small sample size, there were no strong signs of tendencies for recurrence in either group. Future studies with larger sample size are warranted to assess the possible clinical implications.

Lung cancer is the most frequent cause of cancer-related death worldwide. The patient’s outcome depends on tumor size, lymph node involvement and metastatic spread at the time of diagnosis. The prognostic value of lymph and blood vessel invasion, however, is still insufficiently investigated. We retrospectively examined the invasion of lymph vessels and blood vessels separately as two possible prognostic factors in 160 patients who underwent a video-assisted thoracoscopic lobectomy for non-small-cell lung cancer at our institution between 2014 and 2019. Lymph vessel invasion was significantly associated with the UICC stage, lymph node involvement, tumor dedifferentiation, blood vessel invasion and recurrence. Blood vessel invasion tended to be negative prognostic, but missed the level of significance (p = 0.108). Lymph vessel invasion, on the other hand, proved to be a prognostic factor for both histological subtypes, adenocarcinoma (p < 0.001) as well as squamous cell carcinoma (p = 0.018). After multivariate analysis apart from the UICC stage, only lymph vessel invasion remained independently prognostic (p = 0.018). Remarkably, we found analogue survival curve progressions of patients with stage I, with lymph vessel invasion, compared to stage II non-small-cell lung cancer. After further validation in prospective studies, lymph vessel invasion might be considered as an upstaging factor in resectable lung cancer. Especially in the early-stage of the disease, it might represent an additional risk factor to consider adjuvant therapy after surgical resection.

BACKGROUND: In uncommon mucosal melanomas of the head and neck established prognostic factors are rare and controversially discussed. The purpose of this study was to evaluate outcome and value of S100/podoplanin and S100/CD31 double immunostaining in head and neck mucosal melanomas.
METHODS: Retrospectively, patients with head and neck mucosal melanomas treated between 1973 and 2008 were analyzed. S100/podoplanin and S100/CD31 immunostaining were performed to detect lymph vessel invasion (LVI) and blood vessel invasion (BVI). Predictive parameters for disease-specific survival (DSS) were identified using univariate and multivariate statistics.
RESULTS: Forty-two patients with head and neck mucosal melanoma were included. Three-year, 5-year, and 10-year DSS rates were 59%, 44%, and 20%, respectively. Age above 70 years, occurrence of distant metastasis, LVI, and BVI were significantly associated with shorter DSS time (p < .05), whereas localization at the conjunctiva showed better outcome.
CONCLUSIONS: S100/podoplanin and S100/CD31 double immunostaining detect reliable LVI and BVI in head and neck mucosal melanoma and both are associated significantly with worse prognosis.

BACKGROUND: Some studies investigating the prognostic value of lymph vascular space invasion (LVSI) have shown an association between LVSI and disease-free survival. Definitive criteria and optimal determination of this parameter remain unclear, however, especially regarding the clinical relevance of LVSI quantification.
METHODS: A subset of node-negative breast carcinomas from premenopausal patients from the European Organization for the Research and Treatment of Cancer trial 10854 (assessing efficacy of perioperative chemotherapy patients with T1-T3, N0-2, and M0 breast cancer (BC) was selected and scored for LVSI. In 358 evaluable breast carcinomas, the number of LVSI foci and tumor cells was determined in the largest tumor embolus within the lymph vessels. These two parameters were multiplied to calculate the LVSI tumor burden (LVSI TB). The optimal cutoff for this parameter was calculated in a test set (N = 120), tested in a validation set (N = 238), and compared with simple quantitation of the number of LVSI foci.
RESULTS: Tumors with a single LVSI focus are not associated with increased risk for relapse [hazard ratio (HR) 1.423, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.762-2.656]. The LVSI TB had higher sensitivity and specificity compared with simple determination of the number of LVSI foci. LVSI TB was independently associated with disease-free survival in the validation set (HR 2.366, 95% CI 1.369-4.090, P = 0.002) in multivariate analysis and provided prognostic information in both the low- and high-risk node-negative BC groups (P < 0.001 and P = 0.007, respectively).
CONCLUSIONS: The determination of the number of LVSI foci multiplied by the number of tumor cells gives the most reliable quantitative assessment of this parameter, which can provide prognostic information in node-negative BC.