Cancer
-
The authors reviewed clinical features, surgical extent of resection, histologic parameters, and DNA content in 55 children with medulloblastomas and found that complete or near total resection, absence of tumor dissemination, tumor DNA aneuploidy, and low proliferative index correlated with a favorable clinical outcome. A scoring system was developed based upon these features to identify patients who, in the future, may benefit from more aggressive or novel therapeutic regimens. Patient age and sex and adjuvant chemotherapy did not significantly correlate with long-term survival. The data also suggest that tumors that have been designated as cerebellar neuroblastomas may be a distinct group of posterior fossa tumors, which may have a better prognosis.
-
Esophageal dysplasia and carcinoma were reviewed in the surgical specimens obtained from 37 patients with squamous cell carcinoma and 4 with adenocarcinoma; special attention was paid to the continuity of both lesions. Two hundred forty dysplasias and 113 carcinomas in situ (CIS) were recognized in the squamous cell carcinoma cases and 2 dysplasias and no CIS in the adenocarcinoma cases. The CIS often was accompanied continuously by severe dysplasia rather than mild or moderate dysplasia, suggesting some relationship between the CIS and the severity of dysplasia. ⋯ The frequency of appearance of the dysplasia near the CIS was low (11%), demonstrating a negative dysplasia-CIS sequence in many of the esophageal cancers. Lymphocytic infiltration was investigated further beneath the dysplasia or CIS. The degree of lymphocytic infiltration with lymphoid follicles correlated with the severity of dysplasia and was the highest in CIS.