Histopathology
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The objective of this study was to quantify the impact of pirfenidone or nintedanib treatment on lung histopathology and molecular mediators of fibrosis in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). ⋯ Pirfenidone and nintedanib do not modulate expression of senescence markers, levels of p-SMAD3 or the amount of fibrosis in IPF lungs. Treated patients have less histopathological evidence of acute lung injury at the time of lung transplantation.
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Expression profiles and clinical impact of programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) and programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) expressing tumour infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) are not elucidated fully. This study evaluates expression patterns in primary HNSCC and related lymph node metastasis and the impact on patients' clinical outcome. ⋯ Our results characterise the expression profiles of PD-1 axis proteins in HNSCC which might serve as possible clinical prognostic markers.
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Observational Study
The role of transbronchial cryobiopsy in lung transplantation.
Lung transplant monitoring is usually performed with forceps transbronchial biopsies. These types of biopsy show limited reliability and a high degree of variability, owing to insufficient material and compression artefact, which lead to misinterpretation and, eventually, inappropriate treatment of the transplanted patients. The following study was undertaken to assess the diagnostic yield, histological quality and safety of cryobiopsy (CB) in comparison with conventional forceps biopsy (FB) for sampling lung tissue in transplant recipients. ⋯ Transbronchial cryoprobe bronchoscopy allows the harvesting of larger and more expanded lung tissue samples, increasing the diagnostic yield in the monitoring of the lung allograft by means of a safe procedure.
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To investigate the clinicopathological and molecular features of primary effusion lymphoma (PEL) in Taiwan and the association with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), human herpesvirus 8 (HHV8) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). ⋯ Apart from the phenotypical difference, our HHV8-positive neoplasms were not distinct from the HHV8-negative group. Literature review of 256 cases, including our cases, revealed that HHV8-positive cases were associated more frequently with HIV and EBV infection, with rare MYC rearrangement, and a poorer prognosis than HHV8-negative cases. We propose to name the HHV8-positive cases as 'classical' or 'type I PEL' and the HHV8-negative cases as 'type II PEL', stressing the similarities and the distinctive features between these two groups.
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Lymphoproliferative disorders (LPD) characterised by human herpesvirus 8 (HHV8) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection are rare and two entities are included in the World Health Organisation classification: primary effusion lymphoma (PEL) and germinotropic LPD. These two entities have very different clinicopathological presentations and prognosis. Here we describe two cases of HHV8-positive, EBV-positive lymphoma with clinicopathological features that are not consistent with either PEL or germinotropic LPD. ⋯ The description of these two cases suggests that the category of HHV8+ EBV+ LPDs is a spectrum, which not only includes PEL and germinotropic LPD, but also other cases that have overlapping but distinctive features.