Biomedical subjects

C Vicentini

Publications and source records attributed to C Vicentini.

30 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

PubMed1989

Testicular changes after treatment with a GnRH analog (buserelin) in association with cyproterone acetate in men with prostatic cancer.

Twelve patients (age range: 53-78 years) with prostatic cancer were treated with Buserelin (1.2 mg/day) and cyproterone acetate (150 mg/day). Testicular biopsies performed after 13-96 weeks of treatment were compared to those obtained from 6 untreated men of similar age. Deranged spermatogenesis was observed in all but 1 treated patient. The appearance of immature Sertoli cells and atrophic Leydig cells suggests a condition of pharmacologic 'hypophysectomy'. The variable damage to the seminiferous epithelium and findings of an incomplete involution of Leydig cells suggested a decreased but still present testicular steroidogenesis.

Aged↗

PubMed1988

Early diagnosis of prostatic carcinoma based on in vitro culture of viable tumor cells harvested by prostatic massage.

Prostatic cancer is diagnosed too late in most cases, so that therapy is frequently ineffective or even not undertaken at all because of the already advanced stage of the disease. An early diagnosis technique for prostatic cancer would therefore be highly desirable, also because all other available markers give very unsatisfactory results. Because of our experience in tissue culture of human prostatic specimens, by which we have shown good correlations with patient prognosis, we attempted to grow epithelial cells collected from prostatic fluid after rectal prostatic massage. Samples from prostatic cancer patients, diagnosed by needle biopsy, were grown in culture and were able to survive in vitro for at least 2 weeks, thus providing morphological and biochemical data concerning their neoplastic and differentiation features. The early data on this new approach, which we believe might represent a very useful test for the early diagnosis of the neoplasm, are reported here. The method is noninvasive and suitable for mass screening of the disease. Accuracy and reliability of the technique are currently being tested.

Carcinoma↗

PubMed1988

Short-term tissue culture of prostatic carcinoma samples provides useful biological parameters related to patient prognosis.

In order to identify new data to be able to better evaluate patient prognosis in prostatic carcinoma (PRCA), we started a study 6 years ago correlating in vitro parameters from human PRCA samples grown in tissue culture with histological diagnosis of the same tumors [Eur. Urol. 11: 330-333, 1985]. The original study has been extended with more cases and updated with follow-up of the patients. To date, we evaluated 51 specimens of PRCA (18 grade I, 19 grade II, 13 grade III and 1 grade IV) and 8 of benign prostatic hypertrophy. Tissue samples were cultured in medium DME plus 10% fetal calf serum, 10% horse serum and 50 ng/ml each of hydrocortisone and insulin. Epithelial cells grown from the explants showed an average life in culture and morphological and biochemical features in good correlation with tumor grade. Short cultural life span, regular growth and positive secretion activity are typical of low-grade tumors, meanwhile the opposite is true for high-grade tumors. Of these patients, 15 were evaluable for prognosis, because they died or because they were followed-up for at least 3 years. In this group we compared tissue culture data with survival and found a fairly good correlation between growth parameters and clinical outcome of each case. Although more cases are needed to provide statistical significance to the results, the data we collected seem to indicate that low-grade tumors susceptible of poorer prognosis can be identified by a short-term tissue culture showing morphological atypias and long average life span. This method may be easily reproduced in any hospital equipped with a tissue culture unit.

Carcinoma↗

PubMed1985

Human prostatic carcinoma in tissue culture: correlations between histological diagnosis and in vitro parameters.

Prostatic cell biology is still largely unknown so that even the natural history of prostatic carcinoma is unpredictable. In order to correlate new observations with the prognosis of patients with prostatic carcinoma of various grades, we followed up 24 in vitro samples from surgical specimens of prostatic carcinoma. Fragments from 7 grade-I, 10 grade-II, 6 grade-III; and 1 grade-IV tumors were cultivated in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium supplemented with 10% fetal calf serum, 10% horse serum and 50 ng/ml each of hydrocortisone and insulin. Epithelial cells grown from the explants continued to grow for a maximum of 120 days and their morphology varied from a fairly regular monolayer of polygonal cells to irregular patterns of overlapping growth with many giant multinucleated cells. Although our data need a longer clinical follow-up time and larger numbers to achieve any statistical significance, the present findings seem to indicate rather clearly that a short life span in culture, a regular growth and a positive secretion activity is typical of low-grade tumors and that a longer life span, an irregular growth and a negative secretion in vitro are characteristics of high-grade tumors. A longer clinical follow-up of these patients will be important in the future to indicate whether these findings can be of any real prognostic value.

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PubMed1978