Publications by authors named "Brett M Lowenthal"

Screening children with obesity for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease leads to identification of elevated alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and is a common cause for referral to pediatric gastroenterology. Guidelines recommend that children with positive screening ALT be evaluated for causes of ALT elevation beyond nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. One clinical challenge is that autoantibodies can be present in patients with obesity and thus may or may not represent autoimmune hepatitis.

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Primary female urethral carcinoma is rare. Limited clinicopathologic information has hindered development of staging criteria in this disease. We analyzed 29 primary female urethral carcinoma resections from 3 academic medical centers to characterize histopathologic features, clinical outcomes, and applicability of current and a novel modified staging criteria.

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Context.—: Urothelial proliferation of unknown malignant potential (UPUMP) is a 2016 World Health Organization classifier that encompasses prior categories of flat and papillary urothelial hyperplasia. In addition, UPUMP occurs in settings of both de novo and prior bladder neoplasia.

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Esophageal adenocarcinoma often presents at an advanced stage and has a dismal prognosis. Current prognostic markers have limited utility. ARID1A is implicated as a tumor suppressor gene in esophageal adenocarcinoma.

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Signet ring cell carcinomas of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract are clinically aggressive neoplasms with frequent intra-abdominal metastases at initial presentation. Currently available immunohistochemistry (IHC) markers cannot distinguish signet ring cell carcinomas of the lower GI tract and upper GI tract, suggesting the need for more specific diagnostic markers. SATB2 is a novel, sensitive marker for colorectal carcinoma.

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The special AT-rich sequence binding protein (SATB2) has been reported to be a specific immunohistochemical marker for colorectal carcinoma; however, correlation of SATB2 expression with molecular alterations commonly assessed in colorectal carcinoma has not been performed. We examined the immunohistochemical expression of SATB2 in 586 adenocarcinomas of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract and pancreas to assess its utility in diagnosis and analyze the clinicopathologic and molecular characteristics of colorectal carcinoma stratified by SATB2 expression. SATB2 and CDX2 expression were evaluated in 266 adenocarcinomas of lower GI tract origin (246 colorectal and 20 appendiceal mucinous), 208 adenocarcinomas of upper GI tract and small intestinal origin (74 esophagus/esophagogastric junction, 103 stomach, 20 duodenal, and 11 jejunoileal), and 112 pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas.

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Medullary carcinoma has long been recognized as a subtype of colorectal cancer associated with microsatellite instability and Lynch syndrome. Gastric medullary carcinoma is a very rare neoplasm. We report a 67-year-old male who presented with a solitary gastric mass.

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Giant bullous emphysema with placental transmogrification is an extremely rare entity, with 30 previously reported cases. Of these reported cases, it is typically identified with varied clinical and radiological impressions, presents in young adulthood to elderly, is always unilateral, and usually involves just one lobe. Despite the unknown pathogenesis, this diagnosis carries an excellent prognosis and is curative with complete resection.

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Classical Hodgkin's lymphoma (CHL) presenting with exclusively pulmonary symptoms is very unusual. We report two cases of CHL with atypical clinical presentations mimicking pulmonary infections. The first case represents a stage IV CHL with secondary lung involvement, and the second case demonstrates a very rare case of CHL with isolated lung involvement, also known as primary pulmonary Hodgkin's lymphoma.

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Adenocarcinoma ex-goblet cell carcinoid is a very rare and histologically unique appendiceal malignancy with dual glandular and neuroendocrine differentiation. There is a high incidence of this tumor among middle-aged women with metastasis to the gynecologic tract with the mode of metastasis following peritoneal spread rather than hematogenous distribution. Adenocarcinoma ex-goblet cell carcinoid can spread to any peritoneal site including ovaries or omentum.

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Ulcerative colitis has long been linked with an increased risk for colonic adenocarcinoma, whereas Crohn's disease (CD) has recently been reported to pose a similar increased risk. We report a 33-year-old healthy female with no family history who presented with abdominal pain and a colon mass. Histopathology revealed a moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma extending through the muscularis propria with metastatic lymph nodes and intact mismatch repair proteins by immunohistochemical expression and gene sequencing.

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Urothelial carcinoma can exhibit a wide variety of histopathologic phenotypes or variant morphologies, classifications of which have recently been revised in the 2016 World Health Organization Classification of Tumours of the Urinary System and Male Genital Organs. Many of these variants not only present diagnostic challenges, but also have clinical implications that affect patient prognosis and treatment strategies. This review will discuss these variant morphologies and their relationship to current understanding of the underlying biology of urothelial carcinoma and molecular classification paradigms.

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Adenocarcinoma with osteoblastic metastases is classically seen in prostate, breast, and lung primaries. Less common primary sites include thyroid, kidney, and stomach. We present two cases of primary gastrointestinal adenocarcinoma with metastatic osteoblastic activity from two previously unreported sites.

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At our institution, percent tumor burden in prostate core biopsies is quantified using variations of one of two methods. Measurement by the Aggregate method reports only adenocarcinoma and omits intervening stroma and benign prostatic glands while the Discontinuous method includes the intervening stroma and benign glands between distinct foci of adenocarcinoma. In this study, we selected cases with 12-part core biopsies that were followed by a radical prostatectomy within two years.

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Importance: This study highlights a simple bedside evaluation of itch and pain for suspicious skin lesions.

Objective: To examine the correlation of pain and itch with histologic features of skin cancers.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This large, prospective, clinicopathologic study enrolled patients who filled out questionnaires that assessed itch and pain intensity of their skin tumors at the time of excision.

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Endobronchial ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration (EBUS-FNA) is a safe and minimally invasive bronchoscopic technique that allows both visualization and cytologic sampling with a high diagnostic yield in a patient with mediastinal lymphadenopathy. Besides the most common indication of staging for a patient with a primary lung carcinoma, EBUS-FNA can be used to identify benign infectious and noninfectious processes as well as lymphoma and malignancy of unknown primary. Triaging of procured specimen for diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic ancillary studies requires appropriate clinical information at the time of rapid on site evaluation (ROSE) of smears.

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