Conclusions-The EnVision TM+ is an easy to use system, which avoids the possibility of disturbing endogenous biotin and lowers the cost per test by increasing the dilutions of the primary antibodies. Being a two step procedure, it reduces both the assay time and the workload. (J Clin Pathol 1998;51:506-511)

No abstract

The present study supports the classification of T-cell lymphomas proposed by the R.E.A.L. scheme.

Sarcomas are a heterogeneous group of mesenchymal tumors arising from soft tissue or bone, with an uncertain etiology and difficult classification. Soft tissue sarcomas (STSs) account for around 1% of all adult cancers. Till date, more than 50 histologic subtypes have been identified. Adipocyte sarcoma or liposarcoma (LPS) is one of the most common STS subtypes, accounting for 15% of all sarcomas, with an incidence of 24% of all extremity STSs and 45% of all retroperitoneal STSs. The new World Health Organization classification system has divided LPS into four different subgroups: atypical lipomatous tumor/well-differentiated LPS, dedifferentiated LPS, myxoid LPS, and pleomorphic LPS. These lesions can develop at any location and exhibit different aggressive potentials reflecting their morphologic diversity and clinical behavior. Patients affected by LPS should be managed in specialized multidisciplinary cancer centers. Whereas surgical resection is the mainstay of treatment for localized disease, the benefits of adjuvant and neoadjuvant chemotherapy are still unclear. Systemic treatment, particularly chemotherapy, is still limited in metastatic disease. Despite the efforts toward a better understanding of the biology of LPS, the outcome of advanced and metastatic patients remains poor. The advent of targeted therapies may lead to an improvement of treatment options and clinical outcomes. A larger patient enrollment into translational and clinical studies will help increase the knowledge of the biological behavior of LPSs, test new drugs, and introduce new methodological studies, that is, on treatment response.

Bone metastasis is a complex process that needs to be better understood in order to help clinicians prevent and treat it. Xenografts using patient-derived material (PDX) rather than cancer cell lines are a novel approach that guarantees more clinically realistic results. A primary culture of bone metastasis derived from a 67-year-old patient with breast cancer was cultured and then injected into zebrafish (ZF) embryos to study its metastatic potential. In vivo behavior and results of gene expression analyses of the primary culture were compared with those of cancer cell lines with different metastatic potential (MCF7 and MDA-MB-231). The MCF7 cell line, which has the same hormonal receptor status as the bone metastasis primary culture, did not survive in the in vivo model. Conversely, MDA-MB-231 disseminated and colonized different parts of the ZF, including caudal hematopoietic tissues (CHT), revealing a migratory phenotype. Primary culture cells disseminated and in later stages extravasated from the vessels, engrafting into ZF tissues and reaching the CHT. Primary cell behavior reflected the clinical course of the patient’s medical history. Our results underline the potential for using PDX models in bone metastasis research and outline new methods for the clinical application of this in vivo model.