Purpose To describe the clinical and pathological features of atypical vascular lesions (AVLs) after conservative surgery and radiation of the breast cancer,and to discuss the association with post-radiation angiosarcoma.Methods The clinical and pathological features in one case of AVLs was evaluated.The literatures were reviewed.Results The patient is a 57-yeAR~-old female who underwent a conservative surgery of the right breast because of a carcinoma.She received standard dose of radiation as adjuvant therapy.Three years later, multiple erythematous plaques developed around the former scar, which radiated to the nipple.Clinically,the plaques were considered as relapses of the carcinoma.However, fine needle aspiration gave negative results.Biopsy of one large plague revealed a circumscribed vascular lesion confined to the superficial dermis.It was composed of thin-walled anastomosing lymphatic vessels lined by attenuated endothelial cells.In focal areas, the vessels extended to the mid-dermis.Immunohistochemically, the endothelial cells were positive for CD31, CD34 and D2-40,with absent of α-SMA positive pericytes.Review of the breast tumor sections showed an invasive micropapillary carcinoma.Conclusions AVLs is a rare vascular lesion related with conservative surgery and post-radiation therapy of the breast.AVLs may represent as a precursor of breast angiosarcoma.Being familiar with the clinicopathologic characteristics of AVLs is important not only for the pathologists but also for the clinicians.

ObjectiveTo retrospectively analyse the data of patients with suspected primary aldosteronism (PA) during the last five years.The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to evaluate the value of aldosterone to renin ratio (ARR) in screening primary aldosteronism.MethodsThe clinical data of ARR in supine and upright positions were collected in 590 patients with suspected during January 2006 to August 2010.There were 357 patients diagnosed as primary aldosteronism and 233 patients as essential hypertension among these patients.100 patients with suspected primary aldosteronism took the upright and random ARR during September 2010 to April 2011 ; Among these patients,29 patients were diagnosed as primary aldosteronism and 71 as cases of essential hypertension.ROC curve was made to retrospectively define the method and the cut-off value of the supine,upright or random ARR.ResultsThe area under the curve(AUC) of the supine ARR in the 590 patients who took the supine and upright ARR during January 2006 to August 2010 was 0.838 (0.805-0.867 ) and the AUC of the upright ARR was 0.873 (0.843-0.899 ).There was significant difference between these two AUC readings (P＜0.01 ).The AUC in the upright ARR of the 100 patients who took the upright and random ARR during Septeuder 2010 to April 2011 was 0.962 (0.928 -0.995 ) and the AUC of the random ARR was 0.944 (0.893-0.994 ).There was no significant difference between these two AUC readings (P＞0.05).The upright ARR cutoff value with 400 ( pg · ml-1 )/( ng· ml-1 · h 1 ) yielded a sensitivity of 91.9％ and a specificity of 64.2％ to diagnosis of PA.ConclusionUpright ARR value was more suitable in the screening test than supine ARR value.Random ARR showed similar effect as the upright ARR.In our research,under strict control of the drug,position and detection time,ARR value with 400 ( pg · ml-1 )/( ng· ml-1 · h-1 ) can be the cutoff point in screening the suspcctcd PA patients.