Background: This study analyzed the potential diagnosis and therapeutic challenges of retroperitoneal schwannoma (RSs) in a specialized gynecology hospital.Methods and materials: A retrospective review was performed in our hospital from 2000 to 2018. A literature search of RSs was conducted using PubMed database.Results: 45 patients were identified (22 from our hospital and 23 from the literature review). The majority of patients presented asymptomatic (22/45). Among them, 25 cases were misdiagnosed as adnexal cysts, 13 uterine fibroids, 1 ovarian malignancy and 6 pelvic masses. Intraoperative exploration revealed that the masses were located in the retroperitoneal space. The median diameter was 6.2 cm (range 3.0–9.8 cm) in our hospital compared with 9.3 cm (6–15 cm) in literature review. Complete resection was performed in 37 patients and subtotal resection in 8 patients. The pathological results confirmed the diagnosis of benign schwannoma and no recurrence was found in the follow-up data.Conclusion: The preoperative diagnosis of RSs is difficult to make because of its nonspecific characteristics. In a specialized gynecology hospital, it is more important to differentiate the benign and malignant of mass before surgery. Surgical complete resection of tumor is recommended and recurrence is unusual after complete resection.
Introduction. The occurrence of aortic dissection is related to the proliferation and metastasis of vascular smooth muscle cells. In our present study, we found that the expression of miR-140-5p was inhibited in the wall of abdominal aorta of aortic dissection patients. However, the mechanism of miR-140-5p in the development of aortic dissection is unclear. Material and methods. We detected the expression of miR-140-5p and NCK Associated Protein 1 (NCKAP1) in blood vessel of aortic dissection patients and normal people by PCR. Next, we established the miR-140-5p overexpression and miR-140-5p inhibition vascular smooth muscle cells (CRL-1999 cells). The BrdU assays, wound healing assays and transwell assays were performed to detect the proliferation and invasion ability of these cells. Finally, luciferase reporter assay was performed to detect the relationship between miR-140-5p and NCKAP1. Results. The expression of miR-140-5p was suppressed in blood vessel of aortic dissection patients, and the levels of NCKAP1 in those tissues were upregulated. Overexpression of miR-140-5p inhibited the proliferation, migration and invasion of vascular smooth muscle cells. miR-140-5p targeted and suppressed the expression of NCKAP1. Conclusions. miR-140-5p repressed the proliferation, migration and invasion of vascular smooth muscle cells by targeting and inhibiting the expression of NCKAP1. Furthermore, the results of our study suggest new strategies and targets for the clinical treatment of arterial dissection.
Cervical cancer (CC) is the fourth most gynecological malignancy in the world. The identification of predictive markers can provide a basis for personalized treatment and prognostic evaluation. Our aim was to identify a new predictive marker of epiregulin (EREG) gene and explore its functional characteristics of CC and other cancer types. Differentially highly expressed genes were obtained from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) databases. Key genes can be verified by the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Genotype Tissue Expression (GTEx) data, and the functions of these genes were investigated through gene ontology (GO) enrichment and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis. Survival analysis were performed to determine the key genes (EREG) related to the prognosis of CC. Then, the expression difference of EREG between tumor and normal tissue was evaluated by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR), western blotting, and immunohistochemistry. The relationship between EREG and prognosis of patients, immune microenvironment, immune checkpoint, immune therapy and angiogenesis was discussed in 33 tumor types. Finally, the regulatory mechanism of EREG on human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) was also explored. The differential analysis results from multiple databases showed that EREG was significantly highly expressed in CC, which was further verified in Hela and Siha cell lines. Then, Survival analysis revealed that EREG was associated with the prognosis of CC and other tumor types, and high EREG expression was significantly associated with poor prognosis. In addition, in almost all tumor types, the expression of EREG was related to immune cells infiltration, immune checkpoint genes expression and immunotherapy. Further analysis exhibited that high EREG expression can promote the high expression of angiogenesis related genes. The experimental data demonstrated that EREG could promote the proliferative, migration, invasive and tube formation of HUVECs by interacting with receptors, such as epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR and ERBB4). EREG may be an independent prognostic marker for predicting tumor prognosis and immunotherapy response of various cancers, and may be a potential target of tumor anti-angiogenic therapy in CC.
Adnexal torsion is one of the most common gynecologic surgical emergencies. All age groups can be affected, but torsion of normal-sized ovary that happens during late pregnancy is rare and challenging to be diagnosed. The objective of this article is to present a case of adnexal torsion in a normal-sized ovary suspected by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the third trimester of pregnancy. A 36-year-old woman at 32 + 5 weeks gestational age was admitted to hospital due to recurrent severe left lower abdominal pain. Doppler ultrasound failed to demonstrate the ovarian diseases, while MRI scan suspected the diagnosis of adnexal torsion. The patient received emergent exploratory laparotomy, and the left adnexa with a necrotic ovary was removed. Tocolytic therapy was used before and after surgery. Finally, she delivered a healthy full-term infant via cesarean section. Adnexal torsion occurring in a normal-sized ovary was quite rare in the third trimester pregnancy. MRI might be better than ultrasound in the early diagnosis of ovarian torsion.
Cervical cancer (CC) is one of the most frequent female malignancies worldwide. However, the molecular mechanism of lymph node metastasis in CC remains unclear. In this study, we investigated the transcriptome profile of 51,507 single cells from primary tumors, positive lymph nodes (P-LN), and negative lymph nodes (N-LN) using single-cell sequencing. Validation experiments were performed using bulk transcriptomic datasets and immunohistochemical assays. Our results indicated that epithelial cells in metastatic LN were associated with cell- cycle-related signaling pathways, such as E2F targets, and mitotic spindle, and immune response-related signaling pathways, such as allograft rejection, IL2_STAT5_signaling, and inflammatory response. However, epithelial cells in primary tumors exhibited high enrichment of epithelial-mesenchymal translation (EMT), oxidative phosphorylation, and interferon alpha response. Our analysis then indicated that metastasis LN exhibited an early activated tumor microenvironment (TME) characterized by the decrease of naive T cells and an increase of cytotoxicity CD8 T cells, NK cells, FOXP3+ Treg cells compared with normal LN. By comparing the differently expressed gene of macrophages between tumor and metastatic LN, we discovered that C1QA+ MRC1 low macrophages were enriched in a tumor, whereas C1QA+ MRC1 high macrophages were enriched in metastatic LN. Finally, we demonstrated that cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) in P-LN were associated with immune regulation, while CAFs in tumor underwent EMT. Our findings offered novel insights into the mechanisms of research, diagnosis, and therapy of CC metastasis.
Cervical cancer (CC) is one of the most common malignancy in women worldwide. It is characterized by a natural continuous phenomenon, that is, it is in the initial stage of HPV infection, progresses to intraepithelial neoplasia, and then develops into invasion and metastasis. Determining the complexity of tumor microenvironment (TME) can deepen our understanding of lesion progression and provide novel therapeutic strategies for CC. We performed the single-cell RNA sequencing on the normal cervix, intraepithelial neoplasia, primary tumor and metastatic lymph node tissues to describe the composition, lineage, and functional status of immune cells and mesenchymal cells at different stages of CC progression. A total of 59913 single cells were obtained and divided into 9 cellular clusters, including immune cells (T/NK cells, macrophages, B cells, plasma cells, mast cells and neutrophils) and mesenchymal cells (endothelial cells, smooth muscle cells and fibroblasts). Our results showed that there were distinct cell subpopulations in different stages of CC. High-stage intraepithelial neoplasia (HSIL) tissue exhibited a low, recently activated TME, and it was characterized by high infiltration of tissue-resident CD8 T cell, effector NK cells, Treg, DC1, pDC, and M1-like macrophages. Tumor tissue displayed high enrichment of exhausted CD8 T cells, resident NK cells and M2-like macrophages, suggesting immunosuppressive TME. Metastatic lymph node consisted of naive T cell, central memory T cell, circling NK cells, cytotoxic CD8+ T cells and effector memory CD8 T cells, suggesting an early activated phase of immune response. This study is the first to delineate the transcriptome profile of immune cells during CC progression using single-cell RNA sequencing. Our results indicated that HSIL exhibited a low, recently activated TME, tumor displayed immunosuppressive statue, and metastatic lymph node showed early activated phase of immune response. Our study enhanced the understanding of dynamic change of TME during CC progression and has implications for the development of novel treatments to inhibit the initiation and progression of CC.
Vaginal cancer is a rare disease of the lower genital tract. We present the case of a 54-year-old woman with occult vaginal cancer after hysterectomy for cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) III. Despite persistently negative cytology and colposcopy results, a lesion was finally detected by vagino-recto-abdominal examination and she underwent radical parametrectomy and lymph node dissection. We consider the possibility that transabdominal suturing of the vaginal cuff after hysterectomy may reduce the ability to detect subsequent vaginal lesions, and discuss the benefits of a vaginal suture approach. We recommend that suturing the vagina apex transvaginally instead of transabdominally would benefit patients during follow-up.