The authors have nothing to report.

Germinomas constitute two-thirds of intracranial germ cell neoplasms, with a woman: male ratio of 8:22. A characteristic of this tumor is its adequate vascularity, which has not been previously studied with markers such as Nestin, YAP and CD15, and which can provide valuable information about the biology of this tumor. These markers were analyzed by immunohistochemistry, showing tumor blood vessels cytoplasmic staining for nestin and for CD15, demonstrating angiogenesis as an important mechanism in germinomas.

The head and neck region and the thorax are anatomically adjacent and continuous via the airways.Tumors arising in these areas may share common oncogenic mechanisms, while also exhibiting site-specific histological subtypes.Our research has focused on papillary tumors arising within the airways, aiming to characterize their clinicopathological, immunohistochemical, and genetic features to identify diagnostic markers and elucidate their pathogenesis.Initially, we reported a pathological association between sinonasal carcinoma and inverted papilloma through analysis of EGFR mutations in head and neck tumors.Subsequently, we demonstrated that squamous cell papillomas occurring throughout the upper aerodigestive mucosa frequently harbor KRAS or HRAS mutations, which are mutually exclusive with low-risk human papillomavirus infection.Furthermore, we found that mixed squamous cell and glandular papillomas exhibit co-mutations of BRAF and AKT1, and we delineated their genetic and morphological differences from ciliated muconodular papillary tumors.More recently, we have shown that mucous gland adenomas arising in the central airways of the lung exhibit a salivary gland-type gene expression profile, with NKX3.1 serving as a useful diagnostic marker.Through these studies, we aim to contribute to the establishment of a new histological classification for head and neck as well as pulmonary tumors.

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Orbital solitary fibrous tumor (SFT) is an extremely rare variant of systemic SFTs. However, the relationship between the biological/clinical characteristics, histological malignancies, and known oncogenes of systemic SFTs has not yet been elucidated. Therefore, we investigated these features and explored the prognostic factors of orbital SFTs by analyzing a series of orbital SFT cases. Six orbital SFT and one meningeal SFT were analyzed for comparison. NAB2::STAT6 variants were identified in five of the six orbital SFTs cases and one meningeal SFT case. There was no correlation between the exon composition of NAB2::STAT6 variants and the time of relapse after surgery or histological malignancy. Nuclear STAT6 staining by immunohistochemistry was observed in all cases, whereas cytosolic STAT6 staining was confirmed in three orbital SFT cases. The presence of histological malignancies and positive cytosolic STAT6 staining were mutually exclusive. The diffuse strong expressions of p53 and p16 were confirmed only in a case with the worst clinical course. No TERT promoter mutations were observed in any of these cases. Our study suggests that positivity of cytosolic STAT6 staining and high p53/p16 expression may be a predictor of histological/clinical malignancy in orbital SFT. Further evidence is necessary to confirm our results.

The incidence of upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC) in Taiwan is high, characterized by aggressive clinical behavior and a tendency to be more invasive at diagnosis. Identifying tumorigenic genes remains an important challenge. Myc binding protein 2 (MYCBP2) regulates the cAMP, p38MAPK, TSC/mTOR, and autophagy signaling pathways in mammalian cells. MYCBP2 dysfunction has been associated with poor prognosis in leukemia, melanoma, colon, and prostate cancer. Its role in UTUC needs to be clarified. We investigated the expression of MYCBP2 in UTUC and its relationship to patient outcomes. MYCBP2 expression levels were assessed by immunohistochemistry in 110 tissue samples from UTUC patients. Higher MYCBP2 protein expression was significantly correlated with worse disease-free survival (p = 0.001) and cancer-specific survival (p = 0.007). The major clinicopathological characteristics associated with MYCBP2 expression were stage, lymphovascular invasion, distant metastasis, recurrence, and cancer death. Based on multivariate analysis, pathological stage (HR:2.31, p = 0.017) and MYCBP2 expression (HR:2.75, p = 0.015) were significant predictors of disease-free survival in UTUC. MYCBP2 is elevated in UTUC cell lines compared with immortalized uroepithelial cells. Knocking down MYCBP2 significantly suppressed cellular migration and invasion activity in BFTC909 cells. In conclusion, MYCBP2 expression might predict poor survival among UTUC patients.

The study investigated the clinicopathological features and characteristic immune tumor microenvironment (TME) of lung squamous cell carcinoma (SqCC) adjacent to emphysematous lesions. 184 consecutive patients with peripheral-type SqCC who had undergone complete surgical resection were enrolled. The clinicopathological differences between emphysema-adjacent SqCC (EA-SqCC) and non-emphysema-adjacent SqCC (non-EA-SqCC) were examined. The immune TME, including tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and PD-L1 expression, was also analyzed. EA-SqCC was detected in 132 (71.7%) of the 184 patients. Patients with EA-SqCC had shorter recurrence-free survival (RFS) [median 58.2 months vs. not Reached (NR); hazard ratio (HR) 0.47; 95% CI 0.25-0.81, p < 0.01] and tended to have shorter overall survival (NR vs. NR; HR 0.47; 95% CI 0.27-1.03, p = 0.07) compared to patients with non-EA-SqCC. Evaluation of TILs in the cancer stroma showed the number of Foxp3+ TILs in the EA-SqCC group was significantly higher than that in the non-EA-SqCC group (median number 58 vs. 43, p < 0.01). However, there were no significant differences in the number of CD8 + T cells and the PD-L1 expression between the two groups. Immunosuppressive microenvironment is a characteristic feature of EA-SqCC, which may contribute to the poor prognosis of this disease.