Sialidase removes sialic acid from sialoglycoconjugates and plays crucial roles in many physiological and pathological processes. Various human cancers express an abnormally high level of the plasma membrane-associated sialidase isoform.Visualization of sialidase activity in living mammalian tissues would be useful not only for understanding sialidase functions but also for cancer diagnosis. However, since enzyme activity of mammalian sialidase is remarkably weak compared with that of bacterial and viral sialidases, it has been difficult to detect sialidase activity in mammalian tissues. We synthesized a novel benzothiazolylphenol-based sialic acid derivative (BTP-Neu5Ac) as a fluorescent sialidase substrate. BTP-Neu5Ac can visualize sialidase activities sensitively and selectively in acute rat brain slices. Cancer cells implanted orthotopically in mouse colons and human colon cancers (stages T3-T4) were also clearly detected with BTP-Neu5Ac. The results suggest that BTP-Neu5Ac is useful for histochemical imaging of sialidase activities.

Aggressive angiomyxoma (AA) is a rare mesenchymal tumor that preferentially involves the pelvic and perineal regions, and is characterized by frequent local recurrences. We describe here a case of large AA in a 31-year-old woman. The patient was admitted to our hospital with a mass in the perineal region, associated with severe menstrual pain. Although her past medical history was unremarkable, she had spotty pigmentation on the lips. Magnetic resonance imaging showed a large mass in the abdominal pelvis traversing the pelvic diaphragm just to the right of the anus, and the border between the tumor and the rectal wall was indistinct. Pathology examination of a frozen intraoperative specimen suggested AA, and, therefore, we completely resected the tumor, using a combined abdominoperineal approach. The tumor was attached to the right wall of the rectum and the pelvic diaphragm between the anus and the puborectalis. The patient recovered uneventfully and there has not been any evidence of local recurrence for 3 years postoperatively. We consider that abdominoperineal resection may be an appropriate treatment for a large AA infiltrating to the perirectal tissues, because the high recurrence rate of this disease has been attributed to incomplete surgical excision.

We describe a very rare case of anomalous origin of the anterior choroidal artery. In our case the anterior choroidal artery arises from the internal carotid artery proximal to the posterior communicating artery.

Background Tumor budding (TB) and poorly differentiated clusters (PDCs) are a sequence of histologic findings that predict worse prognosis and node metastasis in colorectal cancer (CRC). TB and PDC (TB/PDC) are caused by cancer cell detachment and are distinguished by the number of cancer cells that constitute a cell cluster. In short, PDC is regarded as the previous step of TB. TB/PDC and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) are closely linked, but its pathogenic mechanisms are still unclear. S100A10, a member of the S100 protein family, forms a heterocomplex with annexin A2 (ANX A2) and then translocates to cell membrane from the cytoplasm and plays various roles in cell dynamics, including plasminogen activation. S100A10 is the activation modulator of the heterocomplex and promotes cell invasion. S100A10 is involved in the remodeling of both actin and extracellular matrix (ECM), which is also associated with EMT. Case presentation In two representative cases of conventional advanced CRC, we immunohistochemically examined S100A10 and ANX A2 expressions in which both TB and PDC were prominent. Both CRCs metastasized to multiple regional lymph nodes. In both cases, a membranous positivity for S100A10 was diffusely found in both tumor buds and PDCs and was observed in the tumor cells protruding toward the stroma, giving rise to TB/PDC. However, even in tumor glands with TB/PDC, the tumor cells with a smooth border around the stroma showed either cytoplasmic fine-granular expression or no positivity. The immunoreactivity for ANX A2 was almost the same as that for S100A10. In the main tumor components without TB/PDC, no distinct positivity was detected at their smooth borders. Conclusions During oncogenesis, membranous S100A10 has the potential to be related to TB of CRC. This may be due to plasminogen activation, actin remodeling, and interaction with an altered ECM. However, further study is required to confirm this hypothesis.

Lymphocytes play a critical role in the host immune system, and a decrease in number of lymphocytes, caused by malnutritional status and chemoradiotherapy (CRT) leads to immunosuppression. Immunosuppression could enhance the cancer development and progression. Previous studies demonstrated that lymphopenia was associated with worse prognosis in the pancreatic, lung, head and neck, and rectal cancer, but little is known about esophageal cancer. Methods There were 298 patients of esophageal malignant tumors, who had been initially treated with chemoradiotherapy (CRT) between January, 2007 and December, 2018. The total lymphocyte counts (TLC) before CRT and the nadir value during 6 weeks after CRT along with other clinical and treatment characteristics of these 298 patients, were retrospectively evaluated in relevance with the overall survival (OS) after CRT. Results The median TLC before and after CRT were 1469 (range 456–4710)/mm3 and 354 (range 21–1500)/mm3, respectively. When the patients were stratified with the threshold value of 1500/mm3 of pretreatment TLC, the Log-Rank test showed significant difference in OS between these 2 groups (OS 48.7% vs 36.6%, p = 0.011). In addition, the CTCAE grade of lymphopenia exceeding 3 after CRT was associated with worse OS even in the group with pretreatment TLC level more than 1500/mm3. The multivariate analysis showed that the significant prognostic factors of OS were cN, cM, additional esophagectomy and pretreatment TLC. Conclusion The decease of pretreatment TLC was significantly associated with worse OS when the patients of esophageal cancer were initially treated with CRT.