Expression Pattern and Prognostic Significance of Claudin 1, 4 and 7 in Pancreatic Cancer Claudin 1;Claudin 4;Claudin 7;pancreatic cancer;survival;tight junctions; Background: Tight junctions (TJs) organise paracellular permeability and they have an important role in epithelial and endothelial cell polarity and permanence of barrier function. It has been demonstrated that the Claudin family constitutes an important component of them. In this study, we assessed expression patterns of of Claudin1, 4 and 7 and whether they have any relation with prognosis in patients with pancreatic cancer. Materials and Methods: Expression patterns of Claudin 1,4 and 7 were examined by immunohistochemistry in 25 patients with a histopathological diagnosis of pancreatic cancer using a semiquantitative scoring of the extent and intensity of staining. After grouping the staining scores as low (final score 0-2) and high (final score 3-9) the relation between expression of Claudin 1,4 and 7 and survival was evaluated. Results: There was no significant relation between expression of Claudin 1,4 and 7 and gender and stage. No statistically significant relation was found between Claudin 1 and 4 expression and survival whereas a statistically significant relation was found between decrease in Claudin 7 expression and decrease in survival. Conclusions: Claudins have important functions other than their popular function known as adhesion. Supporting this hypothesis, we found a statistically significant relationship between increased Claudin 7 expression and increased survival time, and this suggests that Claudin 7 may exert different tumorigenic effects in pancreatic cancer other than its well-known adhesion effect.

Renal oncocytomas are benign neoplasms derived from cells of the distal renal tubule, and comprise 5% to 7% of primary renal neoplasms. Oncocytomas are mostly asymptomatic, and the majority of tumors are discovered incidentally. In this case report, we present a case of a patient with a giant oncocytoma arising from her left kidney.

In this study, it is aimed to determine the correlation between histopathologic-immunohistochemical factors, tumor subtypes and fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (18F-FDG PET/CT) parameters such standardized uptake value (SUVmax), metabolic tumor volume (MTV), total lesion glycolysis (TLG) in breast cancer (BC). Initial PET/CT examination of 110 histopathologically proven BC patients (age ranging 27-92, mean age 56.18 ± 14.59) were included in this retrospective study. The relationship between histopathological-immunohistochemical factors, tumor subtypes and PET/CT parameters were analyzed by regression analysis. The mean SUV max value of 110 breast tumors was 7.73 ± 5.62 (range 1.4 - 34.15). Histological subtypes were; invasive ductal carcinoma (n:94, 85.5%), invasive lobular carcinoma (n=6, 5.5%) and other types (n=10, 9.1%). The distribution of BC subtypes was as follows; Luminal A (Lum A) (n=38; 34.5%), Luminal B (Lum B) (n=56; 50.9%), HER2-positive (n=3; 2.7%) and Triple Negative (TN) (n=13; 11.8%). Univariate regression analysis revealed significantly higher SUV max values in ductal carcinomas than lobular carcinomas (p=0.03). SUVmax values of the Lum B, HER2 positive and TN groups were higher than Lum A group (p=0.03, p<0.001, p<0.001 respectively). Univariate regression analyses also showed that the MTV and TLG values of TN group were significantly higher than Lum A group (p=0.011, p=0.007, respectively). In multivariate regression analyses, no significant difference was observed in above mentioned groups. MTV, TLG and SUVmax values significantly correlated with histopathological-immunohistochemical factors and tumor subtypes in BC. So that, these parameters can be used to predict the tumors’ behavior.