A Review of Articles From Last Month's Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine

Listed below are questions based on articles that appeared in last month's edition of the ARCHIVES. Registered continuing medical education participants should answer these questions either online or use the October 2008 answer sheet.

1. When discussing the use of immunohistochemistry in prostate cancer, which of the following statements is false?

a. in the posttreatment setting, the cytokeratin AE1/AE3 cocktail is helpful in highlighting individual atrophic prostate cancer cells and is superior to prostate-specific antigen

b. staining with high-molecular-weight cytokeratin (HMCK) 34ßE12 can vary between glands of a benign glandular proliferation and the staining pattern may not be circumferential

c. some studies have suggested that HMCK 34ßE12 has better sensitivity than p63 in specimens from transurethral resections of the prostate

d. potential diagnostic pitfalls in staining with basal cell-associated markers include staining that may be weakreactive to nonreactive in some benign proliferations that mimic cancer, such as in up to 23% of glandular atrophy

e. immunoreactivity to AMACR may be absent in 5% to 25% of typical prostate carcinomas

(from Best Practice in Diagnostic Immunohistochemistry-Paner et al)

2. Immunohistochemical stains are very helpful in distinguishing nephrogenic adenoma (NA) from clear cell adenocarcinoma (CCA) because CCAs show strong staining with AE1 and CAM 5.2, while NAs are negative for these 2 stains.

True or False?

(from Clear Cell Adenocarcinoma of Urinary Bladder and Urethra-Sun et al)

3. An autopsy study that sought to determine the prevalence of pulmonary and cardiovascular disease in obese subjects determined that which of the following statements is false?

a. thickening of the septal and acinar pulmonary veins was observed in 72% of the obese subjects

b. there was no significant difference in the mean right ventricular thickness between the obese group and the control group

c. no significant difference was observed in the mean combined lung weights of the obese and the control groups

d. the causes of mortality in the obese group were related to cardiac disease in 27 subjects

e. plexiform lesions or fibrinoid necrosis of vessels were not observed in the obese or morbidly obese subjects

(from Pulmonary and Cardiovascular Complications of Obesity-Haque et al)

4. The diagnosis of lipoblastoma can be confirmed with cytogenetic testing; for the most part these tumors contain clonal chromosomal rearrangements involving the 8q11-13 region.

True or False?

(from Lipoblastoma-Ende et al)

5. An examination of biopsies from 149 patients with lymphoid lesions of ocular adnexa determined that which of the following statements is true?

a. plasma cells were not prominent in most marginal zone lymphomas (MZLs) and were significantly more numerous in reactive conditions compared with MZLs

b. 14% of the MZLs occurring in conjunctiva, eyelid, or lacrimal sac were secondary to a previous or concurrent lymphoma elsewhere in the body

c. reactive hyperplasias were significantly more likely to show a confluent pattern of lymphoid cells

d. reactive lymphoid hyperplasia was observed more commonly among white patients at a rate of 1.8:1

e. B-cell lymphomas were seen in significantly younger patients compared with those with T-cell lymphomas

(from Morphologic Features of 115 Lymphomas of the Orbit and Ocular Adnexa Categorized According to the World Health Organization Classification-Lagoo et al)

6. A study that evaluated the quality of surgical pathology reports for 7 diagnostic elements deemed vital for conservative breast cancer surgery at hospitals in Quebec, Canada, determined that the hospitals' overall conformity rate improved from 85% in 1999 to 92.5% in 2003.

True or False?

(from Improving the Quality of Surgical Pathology Reports for Breast Cancer-Onerheim et al)

© 2008 College of American Pathologists Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.