Fibro-osseous pseudotumor of the digits is a heterotopic ossification closely related to myositis ossificans and occurs in the subcutaneous tissue of the digits. This lesion is considered a reactive fibroblastic proliferation with metaplastic bone formation. We report a case of fibro-osseous pseudotumor of left index finger in a 28-year-old woman. She had had an ovoid smooth subcutaneous mass with tenderness on the left index finger for one month. In gross, the specimen consisted of a relatively circumscribed, rubbery soft mass with grayish white cut surface measuring 2.0 1.7 1.5 cm. Upon microscopic examination the lesion showed irregular multinodular growth with considerably variable cellularity. Because of the focal hypercellularity, cellular atypia, and increased mitotic activity this lesion may be confused with extraskeletal osteosarcoma or parosteal osteosarcoma. This rare lesion is curable by complete local excision.
Adult ; Female ; Fibroblasts ; Fingers ; Humans ; Myositis Ossificans ; Ossification, Heterotopic ; Osteogenesis ; Osteosarcoma ; Subcutaneous Tissue

Granuloma is a chronic inflammatory process associated with non-infectious agents or infectious diseases such as tuberculosis. It is well known that AFB staining, which has been used to determine the etiology of the granulomatous inflammation, lacks both sensitivity and specificity. Due to the slow growth rate of most pathogenic mycobacteria, culturing of organisms can take up to eight weeks. It is not uncommon for specific therapy to be delayed, or for an inappropriate treatment be given to patients without mycobacterial infections or with infections caused by atypical mycobacteria. Determination of the causative agent in Papanicolaou stained cytology specimens gives pathologists even more difficulties when only necrotic material has been aspirated from the center of the granuloma. In recent years, the use of a polymerase chain reaction for the amplification of DNA has appeared promising in terms of speed, efficiency, sensitivity, and specificity. Since a polymerase chain reaction permits the sensitive genetic analysis of small amounts of tissue, it is ideally suited to the genetic analysis of cytologic specimens. A polymerase chain reaction is easily performed on unfixed and unstained cells, however, an analysis of ethanol fixed and Papanicolaou-stained archival smears has also been described. We have recently established a method to detect Mycobacterium tuberculosis organism by a nested polymerase chain reaction with primers in the insertion sequence IS 6110, using cellular digests of ethanol-fixed and Papanicolaou-stained archival specimens aspirated from the lymph nodes, lungs, thyroid, etc. Inhibitors present in Papanicolaou stained material was removed by destaining the slides with 0.5% HCl solution for 10-30 minutes. Eight out of ten cases which have shown the epithelioid granulomas revealed a positive reaction and four out of ten cases which have shown lymphohistiocytic cells in a necrotic background without any evidence of granuloma revealed a positive reaction. This study showed that it was possible to employ a polymerase chain reaction to detect Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Papanicolaou stained archival cytology specimens.
Communicable Diseases ; DNA* ; Ethanol ; Granuloma ; Humans ; Inflammation ; Lung ; Lymph Nodes ; Mycobacterium tuberculosis* ; Mycobacterium* ; Nontuberculous Mycobacteria ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Thyroid Gland ; Tuberculosis

BACKGROUND: The cornified cell envelope (CE) is a unique structure found in the terminal differentiation of the skin. The precursor proteins of the CE are composed of many candidate structural proteins, among which invalucrin and filaggrin are important ones to participate in the complicated process of forming, the complex structure. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of expression of involucrin and filaggrin as markers of terminal differentiation in various skin disorders including tumors. METHODS: Immunohistochemical studies were performed in the formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded skin samples of non-tumors (41 cases) and tumors (43 cases).
Skin*

No abstract available.

No abstract available.
Humans ; Measles*

Primary ovarian transitional cell carcinoma is extremely rare tumor. The histologic subtype was divided from malignant Brenner tumor due to it's own histologic characteristics and chemosensitive nature. Most of recent studies revealed that transitional cell carcinoma has a good response to chemotherapy and long-term survival. Recent histopathologic reports show that transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder and of the ovary are immunophenotypically different. We experienced a case of primary ovarian transitional cell carcinoma, and report this case with a brief review of the concerned literatures.
Brenner Tumor ; Carcinoma, Transitional Cell* ; Drug Therapy ; Female ; Ovary ; Urinary Bladder

Malignant acanthosis nigricans is very rare disease. The disease is related with internal malignancy, especially gastrointestinal tract malignancy. Reported occurrence rate of malignant acanthosis nigricans associated internal malignancies are 64% of stomach adenocarcinoma, 27% of other organs of abdomen (liver, gall bladder, small intestine, rectum, uterus, ovary), 9% of non-abdominal organs(breast, lung). We report a case of malignant acanthosis nigricans associated with stomach adenocarcinoma from 20-year-old female and discuss review of literature on a acanthosis nigricans briefly.
Female ; Humans ; Adenocarcinoma

Maspin is a recently described gene with tumor suppressor activity. The gene product is a 42 kD protein with homology to the serpin family of protease inhibitors and may play a role as an inhibitor of tumor cell invasion. The prior observation that invasive breast cancers and their metastases showed decreased maspin protein expression by immunostaining supports this speculation. However, the role of maspin in breast cancer progression has not been studied in detail. We, therefore, studied maspin protein expression in a series of hyperplasia, atypical ductal hyperplasia, intraductal carcinoma and invasive carcinomas. Immunohistochemical staining (IHC) for maspin was performed on paraffin sections of 136 breast specimens using a commercially available monoclonal antibody. Among the 106 cases studied were 36 moderate/florid ductal hyperplasia, 11 atypical ductal hyperplasia (ADH), 29 intraductal carcinoma (IDC) (4 low grade, 13 intermediate grade, 12 high grade) and 30 invasive ductal carcinomas. Thirty cases of normal breast were also studied as control group. IHC stains were scored using a semiquantitative scoring system. The mean IHC scores for maspin for normal, moderate/florid hyperplasia, atypical ductal hyperplasia, intraductal carcinoma, and invasive carcinoma were 5.51 1.30, 7.36 0.72, 3.82 1.60, 4.48 2.69, 3.97 3.30, respectively. These scores for each category were statistically significant (p<0.05), except between ADH and IDC. Maspin protein expression was increased in most cases of moderate/florid hyperplasia, while maspin expression was more heterogeneous in ADH and IDC. In high grade IDC, maspin protein expression was stronger than low and intermediate grade IDC, and this suggests the possibility of a compensatory cellular response against the forces driving further tumor progression. Two thirds of invasive ductal carcinomas expressed maspin protein weakly and focally. All metastatic carcinomas of lymph nodes were negative for maspin. It is possible that high grade IDC with strong maspin expression may represent a subset less likely to progress to invasive cancer. This speculation merits investigation in clinical outcome studies.
Breast Neoplasms ; Breast* ; Carcinoma, Ductal* ; Carcinoma, Intraductal, Noninfiltrating* ; Coloring Agents ; Humans ; Hyperplasia* ; Lymph Nodes ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Outcome Assessment (Health Care) ; Paraffin ; Protease Inhibitors

Actinomycosis causes a chronic suppurative infection most commonly involving the cervico-facial region, thorax, and the abdomen. Thoracic infection results from an aspiration of contaminated material from mouth or oropharynx. Actinomyces was known to have a predilection for the periphery of the lung and the endobronchial lesion is extremely rare. We report two cases of actinomycosis presenting as an endobronchial mass which arose in 53-year-old and 44-year-old women. The first case presented with cough, sputum, weight loss and had a history of pulmonary tuberculosis 24 years ago. Chest CT revealed a right lobe collapse simulating mass and suggested carcinoma. The second case presented with hemoptysis for 2 years. Chest CT revealed cystic bronchiectasis of both lungs and intracystic soft tissue mass in the anterior segment of the right upper lobe which suggested aspergilloma. The gross features of them were similar to those of aspergilloma. Characteristic sulphur granules consisting of a granular basophilic center surrounded by a radiating zone of eosinophilic, hyaline, club-shaped projection were histologically confirmed in both cases. Granulomas containing P. westermani eggs were present in the second case. Staphylococcus, true fungal organism, nocardia, and streptomyces shoud be distinguished by analysing their morphologic characteristics in the appropriate stains. Actinomycosis should be included in the differential diagnoses of an endobronchial mass.
Abdomen ; Actinomyces ; Actinomycosis* ; Adult ; Basophils ; Bronchiectasis ; Coloring Agents ; Cough ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Eggs ; Eosinophils ; Female ; Granuloma ; Hemoptysis ; Humans ; Hyalin ; Lung ; Middle Aged ; Mouth ; Nocardia ; Oropharynx ; Ovum ; Sputum ; Staphylococcus ; Streptomyces ; Thorax ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed ; Tuberculosis, Pulmonary ; Weight Loss

OBJECTIVES: To determine if hysterectomy with or without ovarian preservation is asso-ciated with obesity in premenopausal women. METHODS: 581 women for routine check up from Jan. 1985 to Dec. 1995 in the depart-m ent of Gynecology at Korea Veterans Hospital were included. The obesity was evaluated by BMI(body mass index) scores. 80% of hysterectomy were confirmed from the hospital records. The age, weight, height, blood pressure, menstr- ual history, history of DM and hypertension, social history of alcohol and smoking and other cardiovascular risk factors such as cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, triglycerides were checked. The 248 women with natural postmenopausal status before hysterectomy, taking hormonal replacement therapy after hysterectomy and having performed hysterectomy due to malign- ancy were excluded. RESULTS: All women performed hysterectomy were in premenopausal status in this study. Therefore, the final numbers of subjects included in the analysis was 333. Hysterectomy wit- hout ovarian preservation were performed in 58 cases and hysterectomy with ovarian pres- ervation were in 57 cases. The 218 premenopausal cases which did not performed hystere- ctomy were considered control group. BMI scores were higher in cases without ovarian pres- ervation than with ovarian preservation. And BMI score was associated with the postoper- ative duration in hysterectomy with ovarian preservation. CONCLUSIONS: We suggest that hysterectomy without ovarian preservation in premeno- paussal women were associated with increased obesity, especially BMI scores.
Blood Pressure ; Cholesterol ; Female ; Gynecology ; Hospital Records ; Hospitals, Veterans ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Hysterectomy* ; Korea ; Obesity* ; Risk Factors ; Smoke ; Smoking ; Triglycerides