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Introduction. Diabetes Mellitus causes ultrastructural changes triggered by partially clarified cellular mechanisms. Since cell death is an important mechanism in the appearance and progression of diabetic nephropathy, we studied alteration of several markers of apoptotic pathways signaling in renal tissue of diabetic or prediabetic patients.

Wound healing process comprises a complex network of cells and molecules that are regulated in order to pursue tissue regeneration. Our study focused on the capacity of alveolar blood clots (ABCs), platelet-rich fibrin (PRF) and plasma rich in growth factors (PRGF) to induce in vitro fibroblasts proliferation and migration as a measure of alveolar regeneration. Using cellular impedance with xCELLigence technology we quantified the proliferation and the migration capacity of L929 fibroblast standard cell line in the presence of 4 different ABCs and 3 different PRFs harvested from healthy individuals during standard tooth extraction. We obtained a clear cellular proliferation induced by the compounds mainly after 24 h of cultivation, in a dose-dependent manner. After 48 h of cultivation we registered activated proliferation, but slightly decreased compared to the 24 h profile. Our data confirm that the presence of the blood clot is involved in the regenerative processes. The migratory capacity of fibroblasts was statistically activated by the PL compounds while not affected by the tested PRFs. The chemical mediators present within the blood clot, either produced by inflammatory cells captive within, or by endothelial or mesenchymal cells induced fibroblastic proliferation and subsequent collagen deposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is suggested that different neuropeptides are actively involved in the pathogenesis of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori)-induced gastritis acting as important effectors of the neuroimmune complex interactions, but the available data is limited and contradictory. The aim of this study was to determine whether the chronic infection generates changes in substance P (SP) and vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) gastric level and to evaluate the dependence of these potential effects on the degree of bacterial colonization or the severity of the inflammatory infiltrate. Therefore, immunohistochemical tests were performed to examine SP and VIP expression in mucosal nerve endings and myenteric neurons. Both SP and VIP levels were significantly higher in gastric samples of patients infected with H. pylori compared to uninfected individuals, confirming that these neuropeptides are neuroimmune modulators involved in the pathogenesis of H. pylori infection. Although their expression did not correlate with the intensity of mucosal inflammation nor with the bacterial density, we observed a strong association between SP neuronal level and the degree of myenteric ganglionitis, which in turn correlated with the severity of mucosal T-cell infiltration. These findings suggest that the mechanisms of neuroimmune cross-talk depend on some other factors that remain to be determined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malignant melanoma is an aggressive, therapy resistant tumor of the skin with increased incidence. Some studies report a better outcome for young patients, while others failed to demonstrate this feature. We present a retrospective study including 28 patients with malignant melanoma aged between 15 and 30 years. Some special morphologic features were identified, sustaining the idea that heterogeneity of malignant melanoma in this age group was very high. In young patients, thin superficial spreading melanomas are more frequent, but there are some patients with very advanced lesions and poor outcome. The high incidence of melanomas developed on preexisting nevi indicates the need for a thorough surveillance of nevi in pediatric patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spitzoid neoplasms are classifi ed as Spitz naevi, atypical Spitz tumours and spitzoid melanomas. In 10-15% of these lesions, anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) fusions were identifi ed, that can be demonstrated by immunohistochemical tests. We report a case of spitzoid melanoma in a 15-year-old female patient. The tumor occurred as an un-ulcerated polypoid pigmented nodule on the left thigh; the histopathologic examination revealed a spitzoid melanoma with Breslow index of 13 mm, with lympho-vascular invasion and immunohistochemical phenotype HMB45+, T311+, Melan A+, p16-, p21+, ALK-; sentinel lymph node biopsy identifi ed three of four positive lymph nodes. The patient is well 20 months after the fi rst diagnosis. Differential diagnosis in spitzoid melanoma is extremely diffi cult, no reliable biomarkers for treatment response prediction or prognosis being available to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cutaneous melanoma is the most aggressive type of skin cancer, with high invasive potential. Lentigo maligna melanoma (LMM) is a relatively rare type, accounting for about 10% of all melanomas, while the most common subtype of melanoma on the face, typically on chronically sun-exposed skin of elderly people. Its in situ stage is lentigo maligna (LM). During the process of transformation from LM to LMM, tumor cells secrete or induce the release from neighboring cells of large amounts of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) that degrade the extracellular matrix. Some MMPs, as MMP3 and MMP9 expressed melanoma cells is associated with statistical significance in both in vitro and in vivo studies, with an invasive phenotype. Unfortunately, there is scarce data published about MMPs expression in LM∕LMM, as majority of research on melanoma refer to superficial spreading and nodular melanoma. Our personal, unpublished yet fully data is an attempt to complete a specific panel of immunohistochemical markers that could explain the slow growing rate of LMM.

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are a complex, heterogeneous, idiopathic, inflammatory, chronic entity with common clinical, endoscopical and histological features including some well-defined diseases (UC and CD), but also a group of indeterminate colitis. Ulcerative colitis is the most frequent and prominent member of IBD. The current study is trying to evaluate the impact of various histologic features on UC's evolution and outcome--an issue that has generated considerable interest in the academical environment. We gathered a cohort of 20 consecutive patients with positive clinical, endoscopical, histologic and imagistic diagnosis of UC who were prospectively enrolled for close clinical, biochemical, endoscopic and histologic surveillance. Every patient underwent an ileo-colonoscopy and multiple biopsies were taken from inflamed and normal areas of the mucosa. All these procedures were repeated after a year (12 months) of follow-up. This study is presenting the correlation between Mayo score for assessment of ulcerative colitis activity and several histologic features: Geboes histologic score for ulcerative colitis, basal plasmacytosis and vascular lesions using Pearson correlation test. The most promising prognosis value has basal plasmacytosis, confirming previous studies. These data emphasize the need of a more complex, clinical, endoscopic and histologic system of semi-quantitative assessment of UC lesions in order to stratify patients according to their risk to relapse.

Primary penile melanomas are exceedingly rare (less than 1% of primary penile cancers), 221 cases being reported to date in PubMed indexed medical literature. More than half of the cases occur on the gland, usually in older people than on cutaneous counterpart and have unfavourable prognosis mainly due to the belated diagnosis. We report the case of a 77 years old male diagnosed with a pigmented ulcerated nodular melanoma of the gland with maximal thickness of 4.5 mm, mitotic index 8 mitoses/mm2 and vascular emboli. No lymph node enlargements or distant metastases were identified at presentation. Six months after the diagnosis the patient was well, free of disease. Clinically, penile melanomas may be mistaken for several lesions such as squamous carcinoma, penile nevi, pyogenic granuloma, Kaposi sarcoma. Histopathologic diagnosis is usually straight forward except for highly pleomorphic tumors; discrimination between primary penile tumor and penile metastatic melanoma is the most delicate problem of differential diagnosis. The treatment is not standardized; surgical wide excision or partial/total penectomy completed with sentinel lymph node biopsy are the most frequent methods of treatment; multi-agent chemotherapy and/or high-dose interferon alpha 2b therapy are recommended for patients with locally un-controllable disease and/or metastases.