15^th European Pathology Congress June 20-21, 2018 | Paris, France

Anniina Luostarinen has graduated as biomedical sciences major from University of Turku in 2016. Before and after upgrading her education from biomedical laboratory scientist, graduaded in 2006, she has worked in Pharmatest Services, a preclinical contract research organization, concentrating in development of cancer and skeletal disease treatments. Her whole career has focused on the physiology of bone and the interaction of bone microenvironment and cancer. Particularly the bone histology as well as radiology are in her interest.

Luminal B breast cancer is a hormone receptor (ER and/or PR) positive and HER2 positive or negative carcinoma with high proliferation rate and poor prognosis. Luminal B breast cancer has increased risk to relapse in incurable bone metastasis. Scarce availability of pre-clinical luminal B type of breast cancer bone metastasis models sets a challenge for development of more efficient treatments for luminal B breast cancer where therapeutic resistance is common. Aim of this study was to verify and compare the ER, PR and HER2 status in luminal B type orthotopic and bone metastasis xenograft models. BT-474 (ER+, PR+, HER2+) human breast ductal carcinoma cells were inoculated into the mammary fat pad or tibia bone marrow of female immunodeficient CIEA NOG mice, presenting orthotopic and bone metastasis models, respectively. The orthotopic study was performed with and without estradiol (E2) supplement and the bone metastasis study without E2 supplement. Tumor growth was followed for 8 weeks and histopathological evaluation and ER, PR and HER2 immunoperoxidase stainings were performed at endpoint. The orthotopic tumors with E2 supplement expressed ER, PR and HER2. Without E2 supplement the tumors in the orthotopic and bone metastasis studies were ER and HER2 positive but PR negative. Orthotopic tumors without E2 grew only to 38% of the animals, whereas 100% take rate was observed with E2 supplement and in the bone metastasis study. This study highlights the importance of careful characterization of pre-clinical models when developing new cancer therapies. Focus should be addressed not only to primary tumors but also to bone metastases. The characterized orthotopic and bone metastasis models can be used to study new treatments for luminal B breast cancer, e.g. targeting the IGF-1 or FGF signaling pathways that are known to affect treatment resistance and cell proliferation.

Leticia Antunes has Medical Degree from Federal University of Sao Carlos and is a former resident in Internal Medicine from Santa Casa de Sao Paulo, Brazil. She is now applying for Medical Residency in the United States.

Brazilian female patient, 51-year-old, born in the State of Bahia, rural worker, married, catholic, was living in São Paulo for 2 months. She was admitted to the Emergency Department at Santa Casa of São Paulo in October/2014 complaining of abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, lymphadenomegaly, fever, night sweats and weight loss (10kg) that had begun about 3 months ago. She smoked 1 pack of cigarettes per day for 36 years, however she denied any past medical history or agrotoxic exposure. The complete blood count (CBC) showed anemia, eosinophilia and thrombocytopenia. All the serologies for infectious diseases were negative, except for IgM EBV, that was positive. Abdominal ultrasound showed homogeneous hepatosplenomegaly, periportal lymphadenomegaly, simple cyst in the right kidney and small amount of ascites. CT scan of the chest showed small nodules in the lungs, small amount of pericardial effusion, increased number of lymph nodes in mediastinal, tracheal and infracarinal regions, increased size of lymph nodes in hilar region bilaterally as well as in the chains of diaphragm, clavicles, and in the axillaries chains. Myelogram ruled out Leishmaniasis. The bone marrow biopsy was only hypercellular, showing hyperplasia of the three myeloid types. Lastly, the cervical lymph node biopsy was done with immunophenotyping: CD45 diffusely positive; CD3 positive in the small and medium cells; CD20 positive in immunoblasts; CD4 positive in most of the lymphocytes – T-cell lymphoma with angioimmunoblastic features.