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Abstract Objective To study the clinicopathological characteristics and genetic features of melanin-producing medullary thyroid carcinoma (MP-MTC). Methods The immunophenotype of MP-MTC was studied using the immunohistochemical method, and its genetic features were assayed using an amplification refractory mutation system or PCR method. Results A 71-year-old man presented with a slowly growing 5-cm mass on the left side of the neck for approximately two months. The cut surface of the neoplasm was brown and black. Melanin was found in the cytoplasm of tumor cells or the extracellular matrix. The tumor cells were positive for AE1/AE3, S-100 protein, melan A, HMB-45, synaptophysin, calcitonin, chromogranin A, melanoma, and thyroid transcription factor-1 (TTF-1) and negative for thyroglobulin. No typical genetic features were observed in this case. The patient showed no symptoms and recurrence at 12 months after the operation. Conclusions The tumor cells of MP-MTC were positive for melanin biomarkers, TTF-1 and exhibited no genetic features. Histopathology and immunohistochemistry of the tumor cells will aid accurate diagnosis.

The aim of the present study was to perform the accurate prognosis of different molecular types breast cancer (BC) by using the partitioning calculation method of the Ki-67 index. Partitioning calculation was used to judge the Ki-67 index and the molecular type was classified according to the 2019 Chinese Society of Clinical Oncology guidelines in 199 cases of BC. The association between the Ki-67 index and overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS) and molecular types was analyzed using the Chi-squared test. Survival analysis was performed using the Kaplan-Meier method with statistical SPSS 18.0 software. The results revealed that the 5-year survival rate of patients with BC was 18.60% (8/43), the 6-year survival rate was 38.24% (26/68), while the 10-year survival rate of patients with BC was 73.08% (133/182); the results indicated that almost 80% patients succumbed during the 5 years following diagnosis. Marked differences were found between the OS of patients with BC and the Ki-67 index (between 50 to 54%) (χ2=4.83, P=0.028; χ2=4.60, P=0.032 respectively). All 14 cases of luminal A subtype BC with a Ki-67 index ≤4% survived at the end of follow-up time (69-156 months). At the same time, there was a marked difference between two groups of patients with overexpression HER-2 while using 50% as a cut-off point of Ki-67 (χ2=5.54, P=0.019). On the whole, the present study demonstrates that the partitioning calculation of the Ki-67 index can be used to judge the prognosis of patients with BC accurately. The prognosis of patients with different molecular subtypes of BC may be associated with the different Ki-67 index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Plasmacytoma variant translocation 1 (PVT1), an oncogenic long noncoding RNA located in a recognized cancer-risk gene region-8q24, is significantly overexpressed in various cancers. Many studies have found that high expression of PVT1 was correlated with poor prognosis. Methods: This meta-analysis was performed by searching electronic databases Pubmed, Web of Science, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, WanFang, and ChongQing VIP for eligible papers on the prognostic impact and clinicopathological characteristics of PVT1 expression in cancer from inception to January 31, 2017. The hazard ratio (HR) and odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were computed to estimate the pooled effect of PVT1 on prognosis of cancers using Stata 12.0 version software. Results: Thirteen studies were finally included in this review with a total of 1559 patients. The pooled result indicated that overexpressed PVT1 predicts a poorer prognosis of cancerous patients for overall survival (HR = 1.91, 95% CI: 1.61 - 2.26, p < 0.001) and disease-free survival (HR = 1.90, 95% CI: 1.46 - 2.48, p < 0.001) or recurrencefree survival (HR = 1.77, 95% CI: 1.24 - 2.52, p = 0.002) or progression-free survival (HR = 2.84, 95% CI: 1.67 - 4.82, p < 0.001). High expression of PVT1 was closely associated with tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stage (III/IV vs. I/II: OR = 3.19, 95% CI: 2.43 - 4.18, p < 0.001), and the significant correlation between PVT1 expression and TNM stage is found in T classification (T3/4 vs. T1/2: OR = 6.48, 95% CI: 2.93 - 14.31, p < 0.001) and lymph node metastasis (present vs. absent: OR = 2.56, 95% CI:1.36 - 4.80, p = 0.003), but not in distant metastasis of patients with cancers (yes vs. no: OR = 2.50, 95% CI: 0.72 - 8.66, p = 0.15). Furthermore, the cancerous patients with high PVT1 expression had a worse histological differentiation than those with low PVT1 expression (undifferentiated/ poorly vs. moderately/well: OR = 1.48, 95% CI: 1.02 - 2.14, p = 0.039). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]