Our goal was to determine the expression levels of p16 in the cohort of the OPSCC patients and evaluation of the pathological and clinical differences between these two groups including patients' survival. HPV infection is the main causative factor of oropharyngeal cancer (OPSCC). Identification of HPV status in OPSCC requires positive evaluation of viral DNA integration into host cell however, p16 accumulation in the proliferating cell layers has been accepted as an alternative marker for HPV infection. The IHC staining for p16 has been performed in tumor tissue from 382 OPSCC patients. The sample was considered positive based on more than 70% of carcinoma tissue showing strong and diffused nuclear and cytoplasmic immunostaining. The clinicopathological characteristics of the patients including site, age, gender, tumor grade, tumor stage, the nodal status, smoking and survival have been analyzed when comparing p16 positive and p16 negative tumors. Out of our cohort in 38.2% cases positive staining for p16 has been recorded. Our analysis did not indicate significant differences in the distribution of the p16 positive patients and age of the patients, stage of the disease. Among the patients who have presented with the N+ neck, there were significantly more p16 positive tumors than in the group with N0 neck (p = 0.0062). There was highly significant correlation between the expression of p16 and smoking (p < 0.0001). The significant difference in survival (p < 0.0001) with more favorable prognosis in the p16 positive group has been observed. Overexpression of p16 is accepted as a surrogate diagnostic marker for detecting HPV infection in oropharyngeal cancer. However, one should remember about existence of the small subgroups of p16 positive but HPV negative tumors, with relatively worse prognosis. Immunostaining for p16, however useful on everyday basis, should be complemented with other techniques in terms of reliable identification of the HPV infection.

There is sufficient evidence that blood group related Lewis antigens are tumor-associated molecules. We have conducted immunohistochemical analysis of the expression of Lewis antigens in breast cancer tissue as an indicator of the degree of malignancy and as a prognostic factor. The studies were performed by examining 43 female patients diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast. Postoperative specimens were stained immunohistochemically using a panel of monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) specific for tumor-associated antigens: sialosyl LewisA, LewisA, LewisB, LewisX, and LewisY. The aims of the study were to compare the appearance of metastases, degree of cancer stage (pTNM), and its histologic differentiation with the expression of Lewis phenotype. The evaluation of antigen expression was performed quantitatively and independently by two pathologists. Statistical significance was defined by Mann–Whitney test. The presented analysis of Lewis antigens showed higher expression of LeB and LeA (p = 0.03) in patients in stage N2 than in stage N1. The expression of LeB and LeY was higher in patients in stage T4 than in stage T1 (p = 0.02). No differences were observed for histologic differentiation. These data suggest that the expression of sialosyl-LeA and LeB antigens in breast cancer may predict metastases to lymph nodes.

The aim of this study is to assess late results of surgical treatment for primary non-Hodgkin lymphoma (PNHL), thyroid sarcomas (TS) and tumour metastases (TM) of the thyroid gland. Materials and methods : Between January 1^st, 1990 and December 31^st, 2005, 12725 patients were surgically treated for various types of goitre. Malignant tumour was diagnosed in 617 (4.9%) cases, consisting of 597 (96.8%) patients with thyroid carcinoma and 20 (3.2%) with other tumours, which included 9 (1.5%) cases of PNHL, 9 (1.5%) cases of TM and 2 (0.2%) patients who showed TS. Results : In the group of patients diagnosed with PNHL, variant B-cell lymphoma predominated (77.8%), and in cases of patients with TM renal cell carcinoma prevailed (77.8%). In all cases, hypo-echogenic nodules were observed in ultrasonography and cold nodules in scintigraphy. All patients were surgically treated with possible complementary chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy. At present, 5 patients with PNHL are alive - 43–93 (average of 63.8) months after the operation. Others have died within a period of 2 days to 3 months after the operation. Two patients with TM are alive - 19 and 46 (median 32.5) months after the operation. Others have died within a period of 3 to 62 (median 21) months after the operation. Patients with TS have died respectively 19 days and 13 months after the operation. Conclusions : 1. Patients with primary thyroid lymphomas should be approached individually using all available methods of treatment, including surgery and radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy. 2. Diagnosis of cold nodules in patients with oncological history should always arouse suspicion of metastases to the thyroid gland. 3. Diagnosis of non-thyroid cancer prior to surgery is difficult to obtain. 4. The need for surgery is usually based on local compression.

Glutathione peroxidase 2 (Gpx-2) is a selenoenzyme with antioxidant capabilities that may play a role in cancer development. Hence, we investigated the immunohistochemical expression of Gpx-2 protein in colon adenocarcinoma samples derived from patients with colon adenocarcinoma who did not receive any form of treatment prior to the surgical procedure. The associations between the immunohistochemical expression of Gpx-2 and clinical parameters were analysed using the Chi² test and Fisher’s exact test. A Kaplan–Meier analysis and the log-rank test were used to verify the relationship between the intensity of Gpx-2 expression and the 5-year survival rate of patients. In total, 101 (80.80%) samples had strong Gpx-2 protein expression and 24 (19.20%) samples were characterized with low expression. The high expression of Gpx-2 was correlated with the histological grade of the tumour (p < 0.001), PCNA immunohistochemical expression (p < 0.001), depth of invasion (p = 0.001) and angioinvasion (p < 0.001). We can conclude that high expression of Gpx-2 is correlated with reduced survival of colon adenocarcinoma patients (log-rank, p < 0.001).