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The purpose of this study was the clinical and histo-immunohistochemical analysis of two cases: a cutaneous pigmented facial malignant melanoma and a lumbar congenital nevus with malignant transformation. A series of clinical elements raised the suspicion of some malignant melanocytic lesions and the histopathological analysis through the paraffin embedding technique confirmed the clinical suspicion. The immunohistochemical analysis using the streptavidin-biotin-peroxydase method of the facial malignant melanoma showed: S100 protein intense and diffuse positive, Tyrosinase diffuse positive, HMB45 strong and focal positive, Cyclin D1 positive in approximately 40% and Ki-67 positive in almost 70% of the tumor cells. The malignant melanoma developed on the nevocellular nevus displayed: S100 protein intense and diffuse positive, both in the nevus cells and in the malignant melanocytes as well, Tyrosinase intense and diffuse positive in the malignant melanocytes, poor and focal positive in the nevus cells and HMB45 intense and focal positive in the malignant cells and positive in the isolated nevus cells. Cyclin D1 was positive in about 70% of the malignant cells, but negative in the nevus area and Ki-67 was found positive in relatively 30% of the malignant melanocytes, also in less than 1% of the nevus cells. The pattern and the intensity of the Tyrosinase and HMB45 immunoexpression are important in the differentiation of the nevus cells from the malignant melanocytic cells. The immunoexpression of Cyclin D1 does not correlate directly with the proliferating activity of the malignant melanocytic cells in all types of malignant melanomas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tumor microcirculation is characterized by an abnormal vascular network with dilated, tortuous and saccular vessels. Therefore, imaging the tumor vasculature and determining its morphometric characteristics represent a critical goal for optimizing the cancer treatment that targets the blood vessels (i.e. antiangiogenesis therapy). The aim of this study was to evaluate new vascular morphometric parameters in colorectal cancer, difficult to achieve through conventional immunohistochemistry, by using the confocal laser endomicroscopy method. Fresh biopsies from tumor and normal tissue were collected during colonoscopy from five patients with T3 colorectal carcinoma without metastasis and were marked with fluorescently labeled anti-CD31 antibodies. A series of optical slices spanning 250 µm inside the tissue were immediately collected for each sample using a confocal laser endomicroscope. All measurements were expressed as the mean ± standard error. The mean diameter of tumor vessels was significantly larger than the normal vessels (9.46±0.4 µm vs. 7.60±0.3 µm, p = 0.0166). The vessel density was also significantly higher in the cancer vs. normal tissue samples (5541.05±262.81 vs. 3755.79±194.96 vessels/mm3, p = 0.0006). These results were confirmed by immunohistochemistry. In addition, the tortuosity index and vessel lengths were not significantly different (1.05±0.016 and 28.30±3.27 µm in normal tissue, vs. 1.07±0.008 and 26.49±3.18 µm in tumor tissue respectively, p = 0.5357 and p = 0.7033). The daughter/mother ratio (ratio of the sum of the squares of daughter vessel radii over the square of the mother vessel radius) was 1.15±0.09 in normal tissue, and 1.21±0.08 in tumor tissue (p = 0.6531). The confocal laser endomicroscopy is feasible for measuring more vascular parameters from fresh tumor biopsies than conventional immunohistochemistry alone. Provided new contrast agents will be clinically available, future in vivo use of CLE could lead to identification of novel biomarkers based on the morphometric characteristics of tumor vasculature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]