The specialist system of hospital pathology in Korea has adopted the American system in its start, and divided its categories into anatomical pathology(AP), clinical pathology(CP), and combind anatomic and clinical pathology(AP +CP). Since 1975 the society eliminated the category of combined AP and CP specialist. The first qualifying examination took place in 1963. It started out as a written examination and later changed to have two parts, written and practical. One year of internship and 4 years of anatomic pathology were required for AP specialist. CP required the same period of training in CP to be eligible for the specialist qualifying examination. The training period was shortened to 3 years from 4 years, 1981~1990 and then returned to 4 years in 1991. There has been considerable confusion during the adoption period of the pathologist specialist system in Korea, mainly because of an incorrect concept of the term "clinical pathology" in the modern hospital. Many people understood "clinical pathology" to mean "hospital pathology" as an opposing concept of "basic or experimental pathology" at medical school. The misconception arose from the fact that Pathology Department in a Hospital has not been realized under Japanese hospital system that prevailed Korean hospital system until 1950. In old Japanese style, the laboratory examinations including some histopathological examination had been conduced in corresponding clinical departments. And Pathology Department in medical school was responsible only for autopsy and not for making diagnosis of biopsy or operative specimen necessarily. Therefore, there has been a conflict between traditional Pathologists(most of them anatomic pathologists) at medical school and so-called "clinical pathologists" in the hospital, as the Korean medical delivery system adopted American system particularly after the Korean war. Now in Korean, in the great majority of hospitals, clinical pathology is clearly defined from anatomic pathology, and the two-services are at work in separate programs. However, there are still a few university hospitals, where histopathological examination and reporting are done in the Clinical Pathology Department. It is hoped that a combined AP and CP program can be started again in near future for the pathologists who work in community hospitals or most smaller general hospitals where the pathologists with adequate knowledge on both AP and CP at work supervising clinical laboratory technicians and technologists. However, it is fully realized the specialists in subspecialty field such as neuropathology, dermatopathology, hematopathology, clinical microbiology, clinical chemistry, etc. are also needed. For future prospect both the Korean Society of Pathologists and Korean Society of Clinical Pathologists should collaborate with each other in full scale in spite of painful past experiences.
Biopsy

PURPOSE: To evaluate the outcomes of robotic prostatectomy(RP) compared with open radical prostatectomy(OP) in clinically advanced prostate cancer(PC). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Between January 2003 and June 2007 we performed radical prostatectomy in 180 patients with clinically advanced PC (OP, 88; RP, 92). We compared the perioperative parameters and early surgical outcomes between the OP and RP groups in patients with and without neoadjuvant hormonal therapy(NHT). RESULTS: In patients without NHT, there were no significant differences in preoperative characteristics between the OP and RP groups, but in patients with NHT, the RP patients had higher biopsy Gleason scores(GS) and clinical stages. There were no significant differences in lymph node (LN) invasion and extracapsular extension(ECE), but a significant difference existed in the prostatectomy GS between the OP and RP groups, regardless of NHT. The positive surgical margin rates in the RP group were similar to or lower than in the OP groups when stratified by pathologic stages T2 and T3. Irrespective of NHT, in the RP group the mean estimated blood loss was decreased, the mean duration of the hospital stay was less, and the length of bladder catheterization was shorter, but there were no significant differences in the postoperative day the regular diet was started or the frequency of complications. Although there were no significant differences in continence rates between the two groups, all the RP patients had a higher continence rate from 1 month postoperatively, with or without NHT. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that RP may be performed safely and may have results comparable to OP in clinically advanced PC.
Biopsy

PURPOSE: To investigate clinicopathologic characteristics of unilateral, low risk prostate cancers detected via multi(>or=12)-core prostate biopsy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: One hundred four patients who underwent radical retropubic prostatectomy(RRP) for unilateral, low risk prostate cancer (clinical stage biopsy Gleason sum or=12)-core prostate biopsy were enrolled. In this retrospective study, we reviewed the patients' preoperative and pathologic data to assess potential predictors of pT2c or greater disease at the time of RRP, as well as characteristics of such disease. RESULTS: Of the 104 subjects, only 34(32.7%) were pathologically-proven to have unilateral disease, while the others showed pathologically-bilateral or worse disease from analysis of the RRP specimens. Subjects pathologically found to have uni- and bi-lateral disease showed no significant differences regarding age, prostate-specific antigen(PSA), free-to-total PSA ratio, prostate volume, clinical stage, number of positive cores, biopsy Gleason score, number of total biopsy sites, and highest percentage of tumor at any biopsy site. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed no significant preoperative predictors of pT2c or greater disease at RRP. CONCLUSIONS: Most patients with unilateral, low risk prostate cancer detected on multi(>or=12)-core prostate biopsy actually had pathologically- worse disease. For clinically-localized prostate cancer, a more accurate method to identify appropriate candidates for unilateral or focal ablative therapy should be developed.
Biopsy

The rapid frozen section method is a means of intraoperative pathological diagnosis, first introduced by Welch in 1891 and developed as a diagnostic tool by Cullen, Wilson, MacCarty et al. This method serves useful purposes, such as determining the malignancy or benignancy of a suspected lesion, determining the adequacy of a biopsy of a suspected lesion, confirming the presence or absence of metatasis, and identifying small structures. But it bears many disadvantages, the most of which is the danger of incorrect diagnosis. We studied the indications, the limitations and the accuracy of the frozen section method and the materials studied was total cases of frozen section during recent 5 years. The ovarall accuracy of the frozen section diagnosis of 1,603 cases was 96.2% with 0.3% of false positive, 3.5% of false negative and 2.8% of incorrect histological diagnoses or grading errors the tissues submitted for frozen section were lymph node, breast, gastrointestinal tract and soft tissue in decreasing order of frequency. The false positive cases were four in number, while the false negative cases were 53, one third of which were the misdiagnoses of the presence of ganglion cells in Hirschsprung's disease.
Biopsy

No abstract available.
Biopsy*

No abstract available.
Biopsy*

Antiphospholipid syndrome(APS) is characterized by vascular thrombosis in association with elevated titers of antiphospholipid antibodies. Leg ulcers are a considered to be a cutaneous manifestation of APS due to thrombosis of small to medium sized vessels. We report a case of necrotic non-healing, ankle ulcers mimicking pyoderma gangrenosum associated with APS in 50-year-old man. He had a past history of autoimmune thrombocytopenia and cerebral infarction. Laboratory findings showed a circulating lupus anticoagulant, positive anticardiolipin antibodies as well as anti-dsDNA and anti-Sm antibodies. Skin biopsy of ulcer lesions showed thrombotic vasculopathy of medium sized vessels with minimal leukocyte infiltration. Ulcers were successfully treated with surgical debridement and subsequent skin graft along with anticoagulation therapy.
Biopsy

Cytologic findings of malignant cells obtained by fine needle aspiration from a huge retroperitoneal malignant fibrous histiocytoma were described. The smears contained numerous malignant cells, isolated or in clusters, in a bloody background. The malignant cells had abundant pleomorphic foamy or acidophilic cytoplasm with occasional multilobated vesicular nuclei and prominent nucleoli. Dual differentiation, both histiocytic and fibroblastic types, and neutrophilic inflammatory background were diagnostic of this neoplasm. The report indicated that study of aspiration cytology specimen from a soft tissue tumor was a valuable adjunct to histologic examination.
Biopsy

The authors developed a computer program for use in report printing as well as data storage and retrieval system at the surgical pathology and its efficacy was evaluated at the Department of Pathology, Seoul National University Hospital. This program used IBM PC XT and was written in DBASE III plus language. The main features of the program included an automatic coding and decoding of the diagnosis, automatic searching of the previous biopsy during gross dictation, powerful word processing function and flexibility of the program. The data storage was carried out during the typewriting of the report, so that the typist's workload became markedly reduced. Two kinds of data files wer stored in the hard disk ; the temporary file contained full informations and the permanent file contained the core data only. Searching of a specific case was performed by pathology accession number, chart number, patient's name or by SNOMED code within a second. All the cases were arranged by copied to the diskette during the daily service automatically, with which data were easily restored in case of hard disk failure. The advantages of this program using a persosnal computer were discussed with comparison to those of larger computer system. Based on the experience of 8 months usage in Seoul National University, we assume that this program gives a sufficient solution to the surgical pathology service of many institutes where a large computer system with well designed software is not available yet.
Biopsy

In this study, the prevalence of Hepatitis B virus(HBV) DNA in the needle biopsied paraffin embedded liver tissues of chronic hepatitis B patients by rapid nested PCR was examined. DNA was extracted by NaOH with boiling, and amplified by rapid air thermocycler with glass capillary tubes and nested PCR with two primer sets specific for the surface and the core genes of HBV. The PCR results were compared to that of serum HBeAg, serum HBV DNA by dot blot hybridization with a radioactive DNA probe, and tissue immunohistochemical (HBsAg/ HBcAg) studies. Among 44 patients with chronic hepatitis with serum HBsAg positivity, HBV DNA could be detected by PCR in 43 liver tissues (98%). This results were comparable to the positive rates of 94%(31/33) for serum HBV DNA, 80%(35/44) for serum HBeAg, and 59%(26/44) and 75%(33/44) for tissue HBsAg and HBcAg, respectively. The accordance rate between tissue PCR and serum DNA probe testing was 91%. The results indicate that HBV DNA detection by rapid nested PCR of paraffin embedded liver tissues by needle biopsy is a more sensitive method to detect the HBV DNA carrier than the serum HBeAg or tissue HBsAg/HBcAg status, and is well correlated with the result of serum HBV DNA probe testing. Therefore this method is a practical indicator for the diagnosis and replication status in retrospective analysis.
Biopsy