c-erbB-2 oncogene is a normal cellular proto-oncogene coding transmembrane glycoprotein structurally similar to the epidermal growth factor receptor. Amplification of this oncogene in a variety of human adenocarcinomas has been reported and is particularly well documented in breast carcinoma. It has been suggested that amplification of this oncogene is indicative of poor prognosis and is valuable only second to the lymph node status. Using immunohistochemical staining for the c-erbB-2 protein, overexpression of this protein was analysed in 228 primary breast cancer specimens and the frequency of overexpression and the relationship between overexpression and the other established prognostic variables are evaluated. Ninty three cases out of 228 cases(40.8%) show postive oncoprotein overexpression and using the chi-squared test for a trend, a significant correlation was found between c-erbB-2 protein staining and the histological grade, lymph node status, and estrogen receptor status(P<0.05). No significant association was found between staining and the patient's age and tumor size. Most of the tumors with histological types known to have good prognosis showed negative expression. Above findings strongly suggest that expression of c-erbB-2 oncogene is another independent indicator of poor prognosis in breast carcinoma.
Humans ; Adenocarcinoma ; Breast Neoplasms

Two women were referred for evaluation of new-onset urinary retention of unclear etiology. The results of the urodynamic study confirmed bladder outlet obstruction. The evaluations revealed a bladder neck mass with bilateral hydronephrosis on radiologic studies. Cystoscopy verified a urethral mass and transurethral biopsy was conducted. The pathology report showed a urethral adenocarcinoma. One patient underwent pelvic exenteration and ileal conduit, but another patient refused the operation
Adenocarcinoma ; Biopsy ; Cystoscopy ; Female ; Humans ; Hydronephrosis ; Neck ; Pelvic Exenteration ; Urethra ; Urinary Bladder ; Urinary Bladder Neck Obstruction ; Urinary Diversion ; Urinary Retention ; Urodynamics

PURPOSE: In most cases, xanthogranulomatous pyelonephritis (XGP) is diffusely or focally enlarged, mimicking a neoplastic process. The purpose of this study was to improve the preoperative diagnosis of this disease. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The clinical characteristics, laboratory and radiological findings, preoperative diagnoses and operative methods of 13 patients with XGP, who underwent an operation between 1979 and 2004, were retrospectively reviewed. All patients had undergone intravenous pyelography(IVP) and ultrasonography. Their mean age was 51+/-3.3 years (range 30 to 71), with a male to female ratio of 4 to 9. RESULTS: All 13 patients had flank pain, 8(61.5%) had a urinary tract infection and 9(69.2%) with benign renal disease preoperatively underwent a simple nephrectomy. Four patients preoperatively diagnosed with a renal cell carcinoma(RCC) underwent a radical nephrectomy. 3 patients had extended to the psoas muscle. On the basis of the ultrasonographic features: (1) 6(46.1%) were diffuse hydronephrotic; (2) 4(30.8%) were diffuse parenchymal; (3) 2(15.4%) were diffuse contracted, and (4) 1(7.7%) was segmental or focal. On the basis of the computed tomography(CT) features, the diffuse or global forms(88.9%) were more common than the localized or focal forms(11.1%). Diffuse XGP may be staged as follows: Stage I(25%), involvement is limited to the kidney; Stage II(50%), involvement extends to the perirenal fat within Gerota's fascia; Stage II(25%), involvement extends beyond the Gerota's fascia into another organ. CONCLUSIONS: Preoperative diagnosis of XGP will be raised through a better understanding of the characteristics and radiological findings of this disease.
Diagnosis ; Fascia ; Female ; Flank Pain ; Humans ; Kidney ; Male ; Nephrectomy ; Psoas Muscles ; Pyelonephritis, Xanthogranulomatous* ; Retrospective Studies ; Ultrasonography ; Urinary Tract Infections

Immunohistochemical studies of the molecules associated with gastric tumor progression and metastasis were done to evaluate their relationship with known prognostic factors and their usefulness in assessment of the progression of gastric carcinoma in 127 gastric carcinoma tissues. The 4 antibodies used in this study were CD44H, CD44v6, erbB-2, and p53. The CD44H expression was detected in 76 (59.8%), CD44v6 in 63 (49.6%), erbB-2 in 18 (14.2%), and mutant p53 in 98 (77.2%) out of 127 cases of gastric carcinomas. There was no significant correlation between the expression rates of each four proteins. The expression rates of all 4 proteins were not significantly correlated with age and sex of the patients and lymph node metastasis, but the correlation between CD44v6 expression and the depth of tumor invasion and tumor stage was significant (p<0.05). These results suggest that CD44v6 is closely associated with tumor invasion, and high levels of CD44H, erbB-2 and p53 are associated with tumorigenesis of the stomach as they are highly expressed in early as well as in advanced gastric carcinomas. The findings also support the conclusion that the loss of control of alternative CD44 mRNA splicing resulted in production of CD44v6 splicing variant in tumor cell facilitates tissue invasion by increased adherence of the tumor cell to an extracellular matrix or by tumor cell migration. It can be expected that CD44v6 overexpression in tumor cells appears to be an important prognostic indicator for gastric tumor progression.
Neoplasm Metastasis ; Cell Transformation, Neoplastic ; Stomach Neoplasms

Tumor DNA content measured by flow cytometry may be a predictor in the prognosis of epithelial ovarian cancer, but the results have been inconsistent. It is recognized that these conflicting results are at least partly due to the variation of DNA content between the samples from the same patient(i.e., intratumoral DNA heterogeneity). The purposes of this retrospective study were to investigate the frequency and the nature of DNA heterogeneity in epithelial ovarian cancer and to evaluate the prognostic significance of DNA heterogenetiy itself. Thirty-two patients with stage II to IV epithelial ovarian cancer who were managed at Asan Medical Center between May 1993 and April 1996 were analysed. Measurements of the nuclear DNA content were performed on samples from primary and metastatic lesion using paraffin embedded archival tissues by Epics(Coulter Inc.) flow cytometry. In two cases, the metastatic tumor was minute and did not reveal a separable peak on repeated examination. DNA heterogeneity was defined as different ploidy pattern or difference of the DNA indices than 0.15 between primary and metastatic tumors. DNA heterogeneity was found in 11 cases(36.7%), and the number of cases with homogeneous diploid and that with homogeneous aneuploid tumor were 5(16.7%) and 14(46.7%) respectively. In evaluation of prognostic significance of DNA heterogeneity using correlation with serum CA 125 level after second course of chemotherapy and residual tumor size after cytoreductive surgery among these three groups, the patients with DNA heterogeneity were considered to show intermediate prognosis between those with homogeneous diploid and homogeneous aneuploid tumor. In conclusion, DNA heterogeneity in epithelial ovarian cancer is considerable in frequency and may have prognostic value.
Aneuploidy ; Chungcheongnam-do ; Diploidy ; DNA* ; Drug Therapy ; Flow Cytometry ; Humans ; Neoplasm, Residual ; Ovarian Neoplasms* ; Paraffin ; Ploidies* ; Population Characteristics* ; Prognosis ; Retrospective Studies

Epstein-Barr virus(EBV) is associated with a wide spectrum of benign and malignant disorders including leukoplakia, Hodgkin's lymphoma, central nervous system lymphoma, peripheral T cell lymphoma and nasopharyngeal undifferentiated carcinoma. There are several distinctive aspects of biology of the virus that are important in investigation of virus in clinical specimens. The abundant expression of the EBER mRNA transcripts makes possible the sensitive detection of latent expression in EBV-associated tumors. Although there has been a dramatic increased interest in the direct characterization of EBV in clinical specimens, there have been few studies about the effective and reliable positive controls in performing in situ hybridization technique for EBV, especially on paraffin-embedded tissue. We applied Burkitts lymphoma cell line as positive control in EBV in hydridization using Oncor Kit. The cell block of Burkitt lymphoma cell line(CCL85 EB-3) showed strong and specific positivity for EBER in situ in nuclei of EBV infected cells.
Biology ; Burkitt Lymphoma ; Carcinoma ; Cell Line* ; Central Nervous System ; Herpesvirus 4, Human* ; Hodgkin Disease ; In Situ Hybridization* ; Leukoplakia ; Lymphoma ; Lymphoma, T-Cell, Peripheral ; RNA, Messenger*

An analysis of domestic and foreign cohort studies of disaster victims can suggest directions for domestic cohort studies of disaster. Research papers on disaster cohorts were found with search engines such as PubMed and RISS. The key words used were disaster, trauma, cohort, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Foreign research papers on human-made disaster (n=16), technological disaster (n=11), natural disaster (n=12), and domestic research papers on disaster (n=6) were reviewed. Analysis revealed that domestic cohort research on disaster victims is lacking compared to foreign countries. This results in the current limitations in planning for active intervention and support for disaster victims. To establish appropriate crisis intervention and management plans for disaster situations, a cohort study of disaster victims should be actively implemented through epidemiologic survey and assessment of risk factors on mental health, PTSD, depression, anxiety and other deleterious outcomes.
Anxiety ; Cohort Studies* ; Crisis Intervention ; Depression ; Disaster Victims* ; Disasters* ; Mental Health ; Risk Factors ; Search Engine ; Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic

For quality assurance purposes, the authors correlated aspiration cytology and subsequent tissue findings and examined the reasons for discrepancies. In three months from Jan. to Mar. 1996, 1,383 aspirations were performed, of which 285 (20.6%) had subsequent tissue diagnoses within two months. The aspiration sites were thyroid (483), lymph node (LN) (290), breast (250), soft tissue (154), liver (89), lung (49), salivary gland (26), pancreas (22), gallbladder (3), bone (3), joint (2), adrenal gland (2), scrotum (2), mediastinum (2), omentum (2), oral cavity (1), chest wall (1), and intraabdominal (1) and pelvic cavities (1). A total of 68 discrepancies were identified, and biopsies and smears from these cases were reviewed monthly. In 27 cases (40%), the discrepancy was attributed to sampling error. In five cases (9%), aspiration gave superior results with better sampling and preservation than biopsy. Thirty six cases (53% of discrepant cases) were errors in cytologic diagnosis. We categorized these discrepancies into "A", "B", and "C" ("A": minor disagreement with no affect on patient care, "B": minimal affect on patient care, "C": major affect on patient care), which were 9 (13%), 14 (21%) and 13 (19%) cases, respectively. In thirteen cases of category "C", there were eleven false negative and two false positive diagnoses. Eleven false negative cases included thyroid (3), lymph node (2), breast (2), bone (1), salivary gland (1), lung (1), and liver (1). Three cases of thyroid were papillary carcinomas diagnosed as nodular hyperplasia (1), occasional pleomorphic cells (1), and cystic change (1). Two breast cases of invasive ductal carcinomas were diagnosed as ductal hyperplasia. A malignant lymphoma was diagnosed as reactive hyperplasia and a metastatic carcinoma of LN was diagnosed as tuberculosis. Other cases were malignant tumors of bone, salivary gland, lung, and liver those were misinterpreted as benign lesion or normal. Of two false positive cases, one was nodular hyperplasia of thyroid diagnosed as papillary carcinoma and the other was normal islet cell of pancreas diagnosed as islet cell tumor. A continuous monitoring of laboratory performance is an essential component of the quality control and assurance, and the review of discrepant cases provides useful information for improvement of diagnosis.
Adenoma, Islet Cell ; Adrenal Glands ; Aspirations (Psychology) ; Biopsy ; Breast ; Carcinoma, Ductal ; Carcinoma, Papillary ; Diagnosis ; Gallbladder ; Humans ; Hyperplasia ; Islets of Langerhans ; Joints ; Liver ; Lung ; Lymph Nodes ; Lymphoma ; Mediastinum ; Mouth ; Omentum ; Pancreas ; Patient Care ; Quality Control ; Salivary Glands ; Scrotum ; Selection Bias ; Thoracic Wall ; Thyroid Gland ; Tuberculosis

BACKGROUND: It is well known that a lacunar infarction has characteristic clinical features and a relatively good prognosis. However, the significance of lesions in the parent artery of patients with lacunar syndrome as regard to the prognosis remains unsettled. METHODS: Using the data of consecutive patients with their first ischemic stroke and were followed longer than 1 year, were divided the patients by their clinical features and the results of the work-up was as follows; (1) mismatching [MM] group; lacunar syndrome and the presence of parent arterial lesion, (2) large artery artherosclerosis [LAD]; non-lacunar syndrome and the presence of parent arterial lesion, (3) no determined etiology [NE]; non-lacunar syndrome without parent arterial lesion, and (4) small artery disease [SAD]; lacunar syndrome without parent arterial lesion. Patients with a potential source of embolism were excluded from this study. The prognosis and recurrence rate of patients with the MM group were compared with those of other groups. RESULTS: A total of 176 patients were included; 56 LAD, 62 SAD, 22 MM and 36 NE groups. An unstable hospital course was more frequently found in LAD than in the other groups. The recurrence rate of the MM group (23%) was significantly higher than that of SAD (2%), but was similar to that of patients with non-lacunar syndrome (LAD 16%, NE 28%). CONCLUSIONS: Among patients with lacunar syndrome, the prognosis of those with parent arterial lesions was different from those without lesions. Therefore, a systematic work up of the stroke mechanism may be important in patients with lacunar syndrome.
Arteries ; Embolism ; Humans ; Parents* ; Prognosis ; Recurrence ; Stroke ; Stroke, Lacunar*

No abstract available.
Carcinoma, Transitional Cell* ; Fallopian Tubes* ; Female