Bleeding hepatico-cutaneous fistula: Unusual complication of the percutaneous liver biopsy

Introduction. Arteriovenous fistula is one of the complications that can occur during percutaneous liver biopsy. Hepatic arterio-venous fistula with chronic bleeding from the puncture site on the skin is extremly rare complication following percutaneous liver biopsy. Case report. The case represents a 35-year-old woman with secondary anemia caused by chronic bleeding at the site of a granuloma caused by a previous liver biopsy done 7 years ago. The patient was examined and treated for several years due to anemic syndrome. The pathological communication between the right hepatic vein, the anterior sectional branch of the portal vein and the posterior arterial sectional branch was detected on a CT scan, and proven by fistulography. Due to the failed embolization, a laparotomy was performed, where a tumor mass was found in the VI and VII segment of the liver, which communicates with the skin. Tumor mass was removed by atypical resection of VI and VII liver segments. Due to hemorrhage, re-exploration was performed, where bleeding was found from the surface of the resected liver parenchyma. Two weeks after the last operation, the patient was released for home treatment. Conclusion. Although percutaneous liver biopsy is a safe procedure, the complication in the form of bleeding occurs in less than 25% of cases and with spontaneous cessation. In our presentation, there was a complicated intrahepatic arteriovenous-portal fistula with the formation of communication with the puncture site on the skin. This is the first case of complications of this type after percutaneous liver biopsy.

Verteporfin-Loaded Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles’ Topical Applications Inhibit Mouse Melanoma Lymphangiogenesis and Micrometastasis In Vivo

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been pointed out as a candidate for improving melanoma treatment. Nanotechnology application in PDT has increased its efficacy by reducing side effects. Herein, mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) conjugated with verteporfin (Ver-MSNs), in use with PDT, were administered in mice to evaluate their efficacy on lymphoangiogenesis and micrometastasis in melanoma. Melanoma was induced in mice by the subcutaneous injection of B16-F10 cells. The mice were transcutaneously treated with MSNs, Ver-MSNs, or glycerol and exposed to red light. The treatment was carried out four times until day 20. Lymphangiogenesis and micrometastasis were identified by the immunohistochemical method. Lymphoangiogenesis was halved by MSN treatment compared with the control animals, whereas the Ver-MSN treatment almost abolished it. A similar reduction was also observed in lung micrometastasis. PDT with topically administrated Ver-MSNs reduced melanoma lymphoangiogenesis and lung micrometastasis, as well as tumor mass and angiogenesis, and therefore their use could be an innovative and useful tool in melanoma clinical therapy.

Rigid tumors contain soft cancer cells

Palpation, as already mentioned in the ancient Egyptian medical text Ebers Papyrus, utilizes that solid tumors are stiffer than the surrounding tissue. However, cancer cell lines tend to soften, which may intuitively foster invasion by enhancing the ability of cancer cells to squeeze through dense tissue. This paradox raises questions besides the oxymoron itself: Does softness emerge from adaptation to the external microenvironment? Or are soft cells already present inside a rigid primary tumor mass to support cancer cell unjamming? We investigate primary tumor explants from patients with breast and cervix carcinomas on multiple length scales from the tissue level down to single cells. We find that primary tumors are highly heterogeneous in their mechanical properties. From the tissue level this heterogeneity persists down to the scale of individual cells in cancer cell clusters, resulting in a broad distribution of cell rigidities with a higher fraction of softer, more squeezable cells. Plus, squeezed cell shapes correlate with cancer cell motility. Mechanical modelling based on patient data reveals that a tumor mass as a whole is able to maintain a rigid, solid behavior even when it contains a significant fraction of very soft cells. Cell softening induced cancer cell unjamming generates heterogeneous cancer cell clusters with a solid backbone of rigid cells surrounded by soft motile cells.

A Case of Lymphoepithelial Carcinoma Originating in the Submandibular Gland

Lymphoepithelial carcinoma is an extremely rare malignant tumor, especially those localized at the head and neck region. The histological prototype of lymphoepithelial carcinoma is undifferentiated nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Herein, we report a case of a tumor localized in the left submandibular gland in a 20-year-old male. The tumor mass was surgically excised with the submandibular gland, and the specimen was pathologically confirmed to be lymphoepithelial carcinoma.

Utility of Microvessel Density (MVD) by CD34 in Different Histological Grades of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Oral squamous cell carcinoma is one of the leading causes of cancer related death and is preventable. Different grade at which a carcinoma presents determines the treatment modality and prognosis of the disease. Microvessel density measures formation of new vessels around tumor mass and is very important criteria for tumor metastasis and disease spread. Immunohistochemistry provide very definitive measures to determine the micro vessel density. Our study showed a positive correlation between Microvessel density and tumor size and dysplasia.

Upfront Treatment of Pediatric High-Risk Neuroblastoma With Chemotherapy, Surgery, and Radiotherapy Combination: The CCCG-NB-2014 Protocol

PurposeThe Chinese Children’s Cancer Group developed the CCCG-NB-2014 study to formulate optimal treatment strategies for high-risk (HR) neuroblastoma (NB). The safety and efficacy of this protocol were evaluated.MethodPatients with newly diagnosed neuroblastoma and defined as HR according to the Children’s Oncology Group study were included. They were treated with a combination of chemotherapy, surgery, and radiotherapy. The treatment-related toxicities, response rate, 3-year progression-free survival (PFS), and overall survival (OS) were analyzed.ResultsOf 159 patients enrolled between 2014 and 2018, 80 were eligible, including 19 girls and 61 boys, with a median age of 3.9 years (range 0.9–11). After a median follow-up of 24 months (range 3–40), the median OS was 31.8 months, and 3-year OS was 83.8%. In multivariate analyses, the OS was affected by N-MYC amplification (hazard ratio 0.212, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.049–0.910; p = 0.037) and giant tumor mass (hazard ratio 0.197, 95% CI 0.071–0.552; p = 0.002). The median 3-year PFS was 25.8 months, and 3-year PFS was 57.5%. The univariate analysis showed that only the giant tumor mass was associated with the outcome. Of the 13 deaths, 11 died from the rapid progression of the disease and two from treatment-related toxicities. The most common adverse reaction was chemotherapy-induced hematological toxicity.ConclusionThe PFS and OS reported in our study were similar to Western countries. The CCCG-NB-2014 protocol proved to be an efficient regimen with tolerable side-effect for the treatment of pediatric HR-NB.

Fatal course of undetected Ewing-like sarcoma in a 9-year-old boy with uncharacteristic clinical presentation

A 9-year-old boy collapsed shortly after complaining of shortness of breath. Despite immediate resuscitation measures, the boy died. A few weeks earlier, he had received antibiotic treatment for respiratory infection. However, the post-mortem examination revealed an advanced tumor mass of the mediastinum with infiltration of vital structures, which was identified as a small blue round neoplasm with aspects of an extramedullary Ewing-like sarcoma by supplementary histological and immunohistochemical examinations.This dramatic clinical course of events shows that the possible presence of serious diseases should always be considered behind harmless symptoms, even in children.

Breast Implant Associated-Anaplastic Large-Cell Lymphoma (BIA-ALCL): Data Based on the Lymphoma Study Association (LYSA) Registry. Promising Results of Brentuximab Vedotin Combined with Cyclophosphamide, Doxorubicin and Prednisone (BV-CHP) As First Line Treatment for Patient Requiring Chemotherapy

Background: Breast implant-associated anaplastic large-cell lymphoma (BI-ALCL) is a rare form of T-cell lymphoma arising adjacent to a breast implant, recently recognized as a provisional entity in the 2017 revised World Health Organization (WHO) lymphoma classification. The pathogenesis of this entity remains elusive even if gene alterations in epigenetic modifiers and JAK-STAT signaling are frequent. ECHELON 2 trial (Horwitz S et al. The Lancet 2019) has set BV-CHP as a new standard of treatment for CD30-positive peripheral T-cell lymphoma, mainly in systemic ALCL patients (pts) but not in BIA-ALCL. Our objective is to describe a series of pts with BIA-ALCL included in the LYSA registry focusing on the use of BV CHP as front-line chemotherapy for patient requiring chemotherapy. Methods: since 2016, a national multidisciplinary meeting has been implemented by the French Cancer Agency to better define therapeutic strategies for newly diagnosed cases after histologic confirmation. Meanwhile, BIA-ALCL registry was funded by the LYSA to collect ambispectively, in France and more recently in Belgium, patient clinical data including reasons for breast implantation, implant manufacturer, treatment and outcome. Results: from 2009 to 2021 , 85 pts (73 in France and 12 in Belgium) gave their informed consent to participate to the registry. Median age was 57 years (range 29-82) at diagnosis. In 39 out of 85 pts (45.9%) the first implant followed a mastectomy for breast cancer. In this analysis, only implants in the breast(s) where the lymphoma occurred have been considered. Five pts (5.9%) had bilateral lymphoma and 80 pts had unilateral lymphoma (35 left side and 45 right side), 35 pts were implanted once (41.2%), 35 twice (41.2%) and 15 pts (17.6%) 3 times or more. The median period between first implant and BIA-ALCL diagnosis was 12.2 years (range 4.1-40.5), and 7 years (range 0.2-25.4) from last implant to diagnosis. The clinical presentation was seroma in 64 pts (75.3%), breast tumor mass with or without seroma in 18 pts (21.1%) and 3 pts were diagnosed without any mass or seroma (1 contiguous lymph node involvement, 2 in the context of systematic implant removal). The two main clinical presentation (i.e. seroma and tumor mass) were most often correlated with the two distinct histological subtypes (in "situ/mixed" (n=62) or "infiltrative" (n=21)). For 2 pts, histological subtype was not available. The majority of pts were Ann Arbor stage I-II (n=65, 76.5%), and 18 (21.2%) pts were stage IV. Stage was unknown in 2 pts. Considering available information, almost all patients had at least one silicone-filled (n=76) and at least one textured implant (n=85) with Biocell texturation (n=61, 71.8%). No patient had only smooth implant. Implant removal with total capsulectomy was performed in 66 patients and 25 underwent chemotherapy based on CHOP or CHOP-like (4 to 6 cycles) chemotherapy regimens (n=13), BV-CHP (6 cycles) (n=10) and others (n=2). Among the patients receiving chemotherapy, CR was obtained in 21 pts (84%) and in 2 pts failed to respond (8%). Among the patients treated with BV-CHP, 8 pts achieved CR (80%) and 2 pts were not yet evaluated at the time of analysis. No limiting toxicity was noted. After a median follow-up of 28.6 months, 78 pts are alive and free of evolutive disease and 8 are lost to follow up. Seven pts died, either from lymphoma progression alone (n=2) or associated with concomitant active breast cancer (n=2), one from breast cancer alone, one from lung epidermoid cancer and one due to myocardial infarction. Patients with an "infiltrative" histological subtype have a significantly worse outcome with a 2y-PFS of 73.8% vs 96.7% for other subtypes ("in situ/mixed subtypes") (p=0.0039, HR=5.3) and a 2y-OS of 78.7% vs 100% (p=0.0022, HR=8.5). With a median follow-up of one year, the 10 patients treated with BV-CHP are alive and free of evolutive disease at the time of analysis. Conclusions: We report on the basis of a limited series of patients that 6 cycles of BV-CHP provide an excellent disease control in patients with BIA-ALCL requiring chemotherapy. Confirmation of these results on a larger series of patients with a longer follow-up is needed. Such observation provides basis for a prospective trial in order to determine if treatment with BV-CHP could be installed as a standard of care for higher risk patients with BIA-ALCL, as those presenting with tumor mass and /or infiltrative subtype. Disclosures Le Bras: Novartis: Honoraria; Celgene BMS: Research Funding; Takeda: Honoraria, Research Funding; Kite Gilead: Honoraria. Bachy: Kite, a Gilead Company: Honoraria; Novartis: Honoraria; Daiishi: Research Funding; Roche: Consultancy; Takeda: Consultancy; Incyte: Consultancy. Bonnet: Roche: Consultancy. André: AbbVie: Other: Travel/accomodation/expenses; Roche: Other: Travel/accomodation/expenses, Research Funding; Johnson & Johnson: Research Funding; Celgene: Other: Travel/accomodation/expenses; Bristol-Myers-Squibb: Consultancy, Other: Travel/Accommodations/Expenses; Karyopharm: Consultancy; Gilead: Consultancy, Other: Travel/Accommodations/Expenses; Incyte: Consultancy; Takeda: Consultancy, Research Funding. Haioun: Amgen: Honoraria, Research Funding; Servier: Honoraria, Research Funding; Takeda: Honoraria, Research Funding; Janssen: Honoraria, Research Funding; Gilead: Honoraria, Research Funding; Celgene: Honoraria, Research Funding; F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd: Honoraria, Research Funding; Novartis: Honoraria, Research Funding; Miltenyi: Honoraria, Research Funding.

A Comprehensive Toxicity and Efficacy Analysis of Different Bridging Therapies Prior to Anti CD19-CAR-T Cell Therapy in Patients with DLBCL- a National Multi-Center Cohort Study

Introduction - Data regarding efficacy and toxicity of different bridging strategies prior to CAR-T therapy are scanty. Tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah TM, Novartis) and axictagene ciloleucel (Yescarta TM, Kite/Gilead) were commercially approved for relapsed/refractory (R/R) DLBCL since 2019. We analyzed real-life data of CAR-T therapy among all consecutive patients who were treated in 4 different CAR-T centers in Israel. Methods - From May 2019, 144 R/R DLBCL patients underwent apheresis and continued to receive bridging therapy that included chemo/immunotherapy (n=78, 54%), radiation (n=11, 7.6%), chemoradiation (n=22, 15%), steroids only (n=5, 3.5%) and none (n=28, 19.4%). All patients were evaluated after bridging therapy and prior to CAR-T infusion by PETCT (96%) or CT scan (4%). Results - Median age was 68 (20-88) years and Median follow-up was 13 (4-26) months. All 144 patients underwent successful apheresis. Reasoning for choosing specific bridging therapy was based on low tumor mass (n= 23, 16%), high tumor mass (n=73, 51%), frailty of the patient (n=27, 19%), ongoing significant prior regimen's toxicities (n=14, 10%) and local disease (n=7, 4%). In patients given radiation therapy median dose was 23 (range, 8-30) Gy. In patients given chemo/immunotherapy or chemoradiation, sepsis was the main complications (9% of all patients) during bridging therapy. However, none of the patients had a fatal event. 14 patients (9.7%) did not proceed to CAR-T infusion; 6 (4.2%) had disease progression and died; 8 (5.6%) had manufacture failure). Among the 130 patients that received CAR-T infusion, PET-CT prior to preparative regimen demonstrated CR/PR status in 38%, 50%, 40%, 17%, and 16% of patients given chemotherapy, radiation, chemoradiation, steroids only, or no bridging therapy, respectively (p=.15), Figure 1. Any bridging therapy was associated with a better disease control compared to either steroids only or no treatment (p=.012). There were no differences in the incidences of overall CRS (p=.692), grade 3-4 CRS (p=.196), overall ICANS (p=.941), grade 3-4 ICANS (p=.281), acute kidney disease (p=.244), and liver dysfunction (p=.45) between the 5 different bridging strategies. Cardiovascular complications were more common after chemoradiation (36%), chemotherapy (19%) and radiation (13%), compared with steroids (0%) or no bridging therapy (4%), p=.05. Non-relapse mortality was 0 in all subgroups. PETCT at 1-month post CAR-T infusion demonstrated an increase in CR status percentage across all subgroups with no statistically significant difference in the incidence between the subgroups (p=.27), Figure 1. There was no difference in both progression-free survival (Figure 2) and overall survival between the 5 subgroups (p=.7, and p=.23). Cox regression model identified preinfusion lower ECOG status (HR=0.8, p=.04), preinfusion CR/PR status (HR=.46, p=.037) and 1-month post infusion CR status as a time dependent co-variate (HR=.14, p<.01) to be associated with better progression-free survival, while age and type of bridging therapy did not predict survival. Conclusions - Bridging to CAR-T should be tailored based on patient's and disease's characteristics with the aim to achieve the best disease control prior to CAR-T. However the chosen strategy per-se does not impact long-term outcomes. Intensive bridging therapy is associated with more cardiovascular events after CAR-T infusion. A prospective-controlled-trial allocating patients to different bridging strategies is needed to verify these results. Figure 1 Figure 1. Disclosures Ram: Gilead: Honoraria; Novartis: Honoraria. Yehudai-Ofir: Novartis: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Gilead Sciences: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees. Avivi: Novartis: Speakers Bureau; Kite, a Gilead Company: Speakers Bureau. Zuckerman: Cellect Biotechnology: Honoraria; Gilead Sciences: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Novartis: Honoraria; Janssen: Honoraria; BioSight Ltd: Honoraria; Orgenesis Inc.: Honoraria; AbbVie: Honoraria. Yeshurun: Astellas: Consultancy; Janssen: Consultancy. Gurion: Medison; Gilead Sciences; Takeda Pharmaceuticals: Consultancy; JC Health CARE; Roche: Honoraria. Levi: AbbVie: Consultancy, Research Funding.