Patterns of recurrence in patients with melanoma and histologically negative but RT-PCR-positive sentinel lymph nodes.

Background: We studied the patterns of recurrence of patients with only reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) evidence of regional nodal spread to see whether or not proposed treatment interventions are likely to be effective.

Study Design: One hundred seventy-five patients who underwent selective lymphadenectomy for clinical stage I and II melanomas were included in this analysis. We preserved a portion of each sentinel lymph node (SLN) in liquid nitrogen in the operating room and performed RT-PCR on the specimens to detect the melanoma/melanocyte-specific marker tyrosinase.

Villous adenoma of the urinary tract: a lesion frequently associated with malignancy.

Villous adenomas arising in the urinary tract are rare. We identified 18 cases of villous adenomas of the bladder, urachus, and prostatic urethra. Patients ranged in age from 53 to 93 years with an average age of 69.