bims-mesote 2021-08-15 papers

Issue of 2021–08–15
two papers selected by
Laura Mannarino, Humanitas Research

J Clin Pathol. 2021 Aug 10. pii: jclinpath-2021-207575. [Epub ahead of print]

Malignant pleural mesothelioma with heterologous elements.

Toshiaki Kawai, Reishi Seki, Kuniharu Miyajima, Hiroshi Nakashima, Takayuki Takeda, Tomoyuki Murakami, Keisuke Aoe, Kazunori Okabe, Keiichi Homma, Yoshitane Tsukamoto, Koichi Sunada, Yasuhiro Terasaki, Maki Iida, Hideki Orikasa, Kenzo Hiroshima.

AIMS: Malignant pleural mesothelioma with heterologous elements (such as osseous, cartilaginous or rhabdomyoblastic differentiation) is very rare. We tried to differentiate such mesothelioma cases from extraskeletal pleural osteosarcoma, which is very challenging.
METHODS: We compared 10 malignant pleural mesotheliomas (three biphasic and seven sarcomatoid types) with two pleural osteosarcomas using clinicopathological and immunohistochemical methods, and also fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH) to examine for homozygous deletion of p16.
RESULTS: The median age was 72 years for mesotheliomas, and 69 years for osteosarcoma. For mesothelioma, eight cases were male and two were female. Growth was diffuse in all mesothelioma cases except case 10, where it was localised, as it was for the two osteosarcomas. Among mesothelioma cases, 80% displayed osteosarcomatous and 60% chondromatous elements, while 10% exhibited rhabdomyoblastic ones. Immunohistochemical labelling for calretinin and AE1/AE3 was present in 8/10 and 7/10 mesotheliomas, respectively, but in only one osteosarcoma. Loss of methylthioadenosine phosphorylase was seen in 5/7 mesotheliomas. FISH analysis revealed homozygous deletion of p16 in 5/8 mesothelioma and 2/2 osteosarcoma. Median survival was 6.5 months after biopsy or surgical operation in mesothelioma, and 12 months after operation in osteosarcoma.
CONCLUSIONS: Although median survival was longer for osteosarcoma than for malignant mesothelioma, we could not differentiate mesothelioma from pleural osteosarcoma on the combined basis of clinicopathological and immunohistochemical data, and FISH analysis. However, diffuse growth was more frequent in mesothelioma than in osteosarcoma.

Keywords: fish; immunohistochemistry; pleura

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1136/jclinpath-2021-207575

PLoS One. 2021 ;16(8): e0254136

Cytomegalovirus infection in malignant pleural mesothelioma.

DeVon Hunter-Schlichting, Karl T Kelsey, Ryan Demmer, Manish Patel, Raphael Bueno, Brock Christensen, Naomi Fujioka, Deepa Kolarseri, Heather H Nelson.

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a highly prevalent herpes virus which persists as a latent infection and has been detected in several different tumor types. HCMV disease is rare but may occur in high-risk settings, often manifesting as a pulmonary infection. To date HCMV has not been investigated in malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM). In a consecutive case series of 144 MPM patients we evaluated two biomarkers of HCMV: IgG serostatus (defined as positive and negative) and DNAemia (>100 copies/mL of cell free HCMV DNA in serum). Approximately half of the MPM patient population was HCMV IgG seropositive (51%). HCMV DNAemia was highly prevalent (79%) in MPM and independent of IgG serostatus. DNAemia levels consistent with high level current infection (>1000 copies/mL serum) were present in 41% of patients. Neither IgG serostatus nor DNAemia were associated with patient survival. In tissues, we observed that HCMV DNA was present in 48% of tumors (n = 40) and only 29% of normal pleural tissue obtained from individuals without malignancy (n = 21). Our results suggest nearly half of MPM patients have a high level current HCMV infection at the time of treatment and that pleural tissue may be a reservoir for latent HCMV infection. These findings warrant further investigation to determine the full spectrum of pulmonary infections in MPM patients, and whether treatment for high level current HCMV infection may improve patient outcomes.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254136