We report here a case of malignant mesothelioma of the tunica vaginalis testis. A 93-year-old man with no history of asbestos exposure complained of increase of right scrotum size with pain. Ultrasonography and magnetic resonance imaging revealed a right hydrocele testis. A cytologic examination of the hydrocele fluid demonstrated mesothelial cells but show less atypicality and lack of obvious ...

BACKGROUND Peritoneal mesothelioma is a rare malignancy that affects the serosal surfaces of the peritoneum. The peritoneum is the second most common site of mesothelium affected following the pleura. The aggressive nature and vague presentation pose many obstacles in not only diagnosis but also the treatment of patients with this disease. CASE REPORT We present a case of a 76-year-old woman ...

INTRODUCTION Peritoneal mesothelioma is a rare tumor with diagnostic and therapeutic problems. The peritoneum is the second most common site for development of mesothelioma, which in 30-45% of cases is associated with a synchronous pleural mesothelioma. Clinical symptoms and findings may be confusing and diagnosis can be easily overlooked especially in cases where there is no previous asbestos ...

INTRODUCTION Contralateral mediastinal shift due to pleural mesothelioma tissue, rather than a pleural effusion, is an unusual clinical feature of mesothelioma. CASE PRESENTATION A 63-year-old woman with a past history of treated invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast presented with breathlessness and chest pain. Her chest radiograph revealed contralateral mediastinal shift and drainage of o...

The separation of mesothelial hyperplasia from early malignant mesothelioma remains one of the most difficult problems in histopathology. Inconclusive cases are termed "atypical mesothelial hyperplasia" and treated expectantly. A 49 year old male pipeline engineer was diagnosed as having atypical mesothelial hyperplasia in appendiceal serosa by the US-Canadian Mesothelioma Panel. Eight years la...

BACKGROUND Malignant mesothelioma is an aggressive, treatment-resistant tumor arising from mesothelium of pleura, peritoneum and pericardium. Despite current combined regimen, its prognosis remains dismal, calling for more effective targeted therapies. We investigated whether aberrant Hh activation may play a role in mesothelioma. METHODS SMO and SHH expression levels were analyzed in 46 meso...

PURPOSE To establish monoclonal antibodies (mAb) against megakaryocyte potentiation factor (MPF) and detect MPF in the blood of patients with mesothelioma. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN Mice were immunized with a purified recombinant human MPF-rabbit-Fc fusion protein and with MPF. Several hybridomas producing mAbs to MPF were established. A double-determinant (sandwich) ELISA was constructed using mAb...

Accumulating data demonstrate overexpression of both inducible NO synthase (NOS2) and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX2) in many epithelial neoplasias. In addition, cyclooxygenase inhibitors have been shown to have antineoplastic and prophylactic efficacy against human colon cancer and in mouse models of this disease. Mesothelioma arises in a context of asbestos exposure and chronic inflammation, which wo...

The inability to forecast outcomes for malignant mesothelioma prevents clinicians from providing aggressive multimodality therapy to the most appropriate individuals who may benefit from such an approach. We investigated whether specific microRNAs (miR) could segregate a largely surgically treated group of mesotheliomas into good or bad prognosis categories. A training set of 44 and a test set ...

The objectives of this study was to review many epidemiological risk factors on the occurrence of malignant pleural mesothelioma among occupational and nonoccupational asbestos-exposed men and women mentioned in several previous studies. Asbestos exposure is a well-documented etiological factor of malignant pleural mesothelioma. The majority of cases are men and only 40% of female cases are occ...