Cryptococcus neoformans is the most common microorganism found in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) cytology and causes life-threatening infections in immunocompromised hosts. Although its cytomorphologic features in conventional smear cytology have been well described, those in liquid-based cytology have rarely been. A 73-year-old woman with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma presented with mental confusion and a spiking fever. To rule out infectious conditions, CSF examination was performed. A cytology slide that was prepared using the ThinPrep method showed numerous spherical yeast-form organisms with diameters of 4–11 μm and thick capsules. Occasional asymmetrical, narrow-based budding but no true hyphae or pseudohyphae were observed. Gomori methenamine silver staining was positive. Cryptococcosis was confirmed in blood and CSF through the cryptococcal antigen test and culture. Liquid-based cytology allows for a clean background and additional slides for ancillary testing, facilitating the detection of microorganisms in CSF specimens, particularly when the number of organisms is small.
Aged ; Capsules ; Cerebrospinal Fluid ; Cryptococcosis ; Cryptococcus neoformans ; Female ; Fever ; Humans ; Hyphae ; Immunocompromised Host ; Lymphoma, B-Cell ; Meningitis, Cryptococcal ; Methenamine ; Methods

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the cardiovascular outcome of statin medication in individuals retrospectively categorized on the basis of the 2013 American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) guidelines risk assessment and to determine the additional prognostic value of coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) in assessing cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in this group. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This retrospective study reviewed 4255 asymptomatic individuals who had undergone self-referred CCTA with a median follow-up period of 87 months. The primary endpoint was major adverse cardiac events (MACEs); these included cardiac death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, and unstable angina. Individuals recommended for statins according to the ACC/AHA guidelines were analyzed by their assessed risk. RESULTS: MACE occurrence was significantly higher in the statin-recommended (SR) group with significant coronary artery disease (CAD) than in those with insignificant CAD (p < 0.001). In individuals with a normal coronary artery on CCTA, MACEs did not occur regardless of statin medication. In the SR group with significant CAD, there was no significant difference between statin users and non-users (p = 0.810). However, in cases with insignificant CAD, the event-free survival was significantly lower among statin users (p = 0.034). In patients recommended for moderate-intensity statins, the segment involvement score on CCTA was significantly associated with a higher risk of MACEs (hazard ratio 2.558; p = 0.001). CONCLUSION: CCTA might have a potential role in CVD risk stratification among asymptomatic statin candidates.
American Heart Association ; Angina, Unstable ; Angiography ; Atherosclerosis ; Cardiology ; Cardiovascular Diseases ; Cholesterol ; Coronary Artery Disease ; Coronary Vessels ; Death ; Disease-Free Survival ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Hydroxymethylglutaryl-CoA Reductase Inhibitors ; Myocardial Infarction ; Retrospective Studies ; Risk Assessment

PURPOSE: Gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NETs) represent a heterogeneous disease group originating from the neuroendocrine cells. Identification of prognostic markers, related to neuroendocrine tissue-selective tumorigenesis, is necessary to find therapeutic targets. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 327 patients with GEP-NETs were included in this study; there were 49 gastric, 29 duodenal, 49 pancreatic, 12 hepatobiliary, 33 appendiceal, 5 proximal colon, and 150 distal colon cases. We performed immunostaining with the tissue microarray method for menin, p27, and p18. RESULTS: We observed negative staining for menin, p27, and p18 in 34%, 21%, and 56% of GEP-NETs, respectively. The loss of p27, but not menin, was positively correlated with the grade of Ki-67. Menin-/p27-, menin-/p27+, menin+/p27-, and menin+/p27+ phenotype groups included 13%, 22%, 8%, and 57% of patients, respectively. A dichotomized comparison showed that menin- or p27- tumors were significantly associated with foregut and midgut localizations, high World Health Organization (WHO) grade, lymph node metastasis, and more advanced stage as compared to menin+/p27+ patients. Kaplan-Meier analysis for the overall survival showed that p27 loss was significantly associated with decreased survival. Multivariate analysis showed that p27 loss is an independent factor for poor overall survival. CONCLUSION: Our results revealed that the loss of p27 is associated with poor prognosis and the menin-p27 pathway is important in the tumorigenesis of GEP-NETs.
Carcinogenesis ; Colon ; Cyclin-Dependent Kinase Inhibitor p27 ; Gastrointestinal Neoplasms ; Humans ; Kaplan-Meier Estimate ; Lymph Nodes ; Multivariate Analysis ; Negative Staining ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Neuroendocrine Cells ; Neuroendocrine Tumors* ; Pancreatic Neoplasms ; Phenotype ; Prognosis* ; Biomarkers, Tumor ; World Health Organization

Perivascular epithelioid cell tumors or PEComas can arise in any location in the body. However, a limited number of cases of gastric PEComa have been reported. We present two cases of gastric PEComas. The first case involved a 62-year-old woman who presented with a 4.2 cm gastric subepithelial mass in the prepyloric antrum, and the second case involved a 67-year-old man with a 5.0 cm mass slightly below the gastroesophageal junction. Microscopic examination revealed that both tumors were composed of perivascular epithelioid cells that were immunoreactive for melanocytic and smooth muscle markers. Prior to surgery, the clinical impression of both tumors was gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST), and the second case was erroneously diagnosed as GIST even after microscopic examination. Although gastric PEComa is a very rare neoplasm, it should be considered in the differential diagnosis of gastric submucosal lesions.
Aged ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Epithelioid Cells* ; Esophagogastric Junction ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors ; Humans ; MART-1 Antigen ; Middle Aged ; Muscle, Smooth ; Perivascular Epithelioid Cell Neoplasms ; Stomach Neoplasms ; Stomach*

BACKGROUND: During specimen processing in surgical pathology laboratories, specimen-related adverse events (SRAEs), such as mislabeling and specimen mixed-up might occur. In these situations, molecular techniques using short tandem repeat (STR) loci are required to identify the personal identity. Microsatellite instability (MSI) test is widely used for screening the hereditary non-polyposis colon cancer (Lynch syndrome) in surgical pathologies using polymorphic STR markers. We tried to evaluate the applicability of the MSI test for SRAEs. METHODS: We obtained 253 MSI test results to analyze the allele frequencies. After calibrating the estimated nucleotide lengths, we calculated the allele frequencies, a random match probability, and a likelihood ratio (LR) of three dinucleotide STR markers (D5S349, D17S250, and D2S123). RESULTS: The distribution of LR was 136.38 to 5,606,213.10. There was no case of LR<100. In addition, there were 153 cases (60.5%) of LR ranging from 100 to 10,000 and 100 cases (39.5%) of LR>10,000. Furthermore, the combined probability of identity was 9.23x10(-4) and the combined power of exclusion was 0.99908. CONCLUSIONS: Using the three STR markers that are recommended for MSI test, all the cases were positively identified in 1% range and about one-third cases showed high LR (>10,000). These results showed that MSI tests are useful to screen the personal identity in case of SRAE in pathology laboratories.
Biometric Identification ; Colonic Neoplasms ; Colorectal Neoplasms, Hereditary Nonpolyposis ; Gene Frequency ; Humans ; Mass Screening ; Microsatellite Instability ; Microsatellite Repeats ; Pathology, Surgical ; Succinimides

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Lysyl oxidase-like 2 (LOXL2), a collagen-modifying enzyme, has been implicated in cancer invasiveness and metastasis. METHODS: We evaluated the expression of LOXL2 protein, in addition to carbonic anhydrase IX (CAIX), keratin 19, epithelial cell adhesion molecule, and interleukin 6, in 105 resected hepatocellular carcinomas (HCCs) by immunohistochemistry. RESULTS: LOXL2 positivity was found in 14.3% (15/105) of HCCs, and it was significantly associated with high serum α-fetoprotein levels, poor differentiation, fibrous stroma, portal vein invasion, and advanced TNM stage (p < 0.05 for all). Additionally, LOXL2 positivity was significantly associated with CAIX (p=0.005) and stromal interleukin 6 expression (p=0.001). Survival analysis of 99 HCC patients revealed LOXL2 positivity to be a poor prognostic factor; its prognostic impact appeared in progressed HCCs. Furthermore, LOXL2 positivity was shown to be an independent predictor of overall survival and disease-specific survival (p < 0.05 for all). Interestingly, co-expression of LOXL2 and CAIX was also an independent predictor for overall survival, disease-specific survival, disease-free survival, and extrahepatic recurrence-free survival (p < 0.05 for all). CONCLUSIONS: LOXL2 expression represents a subgroup of HCCs with more aggressive behavior and is suggested to be a poor prognostic marker in HCC patients.
Carbonic Anhydrases ; Carcinoma, Hepatocellular* ; Disease-Free Survival ; Epithelial Cells ; Extracellular Matrix ; Humans ; Immunohistochemistry ; Interleukin-6 ; Keratin-19 ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Portal Vein ; Prognosis*

Objective: To develop and evaluate a deep learning model for automated segmentation and detection of bone metastasis on spinal MRI. Materials and Methods: We included whole spine MRI scans of adult patients with bone metastasis: 662 MRI series from 302 patients (63.5 ± 11.5 years; male:female, 151:151) from three study centers obtained between January 2015 and August 2021 for training and internal testing (random split into 536 and 126 series, respectively) and 49 MRI series from 20 patients (65.9 ± 11.5 years; male:female, 11:9) from another center obtained between January 2018 and August 2020 for external testing. Three sagittal MRI sequences, including non-contrast T1-weighted image (T1), contrast-enhanced T1-weighted Dixon fat-only image (FO), and contrast-enhanced fat-suppressed T1-weighted image (CE), were used. Seven models trained using the 2D and 3D U-Nets were developed with different combinations (T1, FO, CE, T1 + FO, T1 + CE, FO + CE, and T1 + FO + CE). The segmentation performance was evaluated using Dice coefficient, pixel-wise recall, and pixel-wise precision. The detection performance was analyzed using per-lesion sensitivity and a free-response receiver operating characteristic curve. The performance of the model was compared with that of five radiologists using the external test set. Results: The 2D U-Net T1 + CE model exhibited superior segmentation performance in the external test compared to the other models, with a Dice coefficient of 0.699 and pixel-wise recall of 0.653. The T1 + CE model achieved per-lesion sensitivities of 0.828 (497/600) and 0.857 (150/175) for metastases in the internal and external tests, respectively. The radiologists demonstrated a mean per-lesion sensitivity of 0.746 and a mean per-lesion positive predictive value of 0.701 in the external test. Conclusion The deep learning models proposed for automated segmentation and detection of bone metastases on spinal MRI demonstrated high diagnostic performance.