Immunohistochemistry as a screening tool for ALK rearrangement in NSCLC: evaluation of five different ALK antibody clones and ALK FISH.

Aims: ALK FISH analysis is used as the reference standard to demonstrate ALK rearrangements, which qualify patients with pulmonary adenocarcinomas for therapy with ALK inhibitors. The aim of this study was to find screening ALK antibody clones with the best positive and best negative percentage agreement with ALK FISH.

Methods And Results: Three hundred and three pulmonary adenocarcinomas were evaluated with ALK FISH and stained with five ALK antibody clones (5A4; D5F3; ALK1; ALK01; SP8) with standardized detection systems.

Hedgehog signaling is involved in differentiation of normal colonic tissue rather than in tumor proliferation.

The Hedgehog (Hh) pathway is a main regulation cascade in embryonic differentiation. It is also present in adult tissues and unusual expression has been associated with formation of benign and malignant lesions. We examined the presence of the Hedgehog pathway in normal and pathological human colon tissue.

Two-year evaluation of telepathology.

We evaluated a dynamic telepathology system in routine use after a two-year developmental phase. In two three-month studies, two years apart, all intraoperative frozen sections were examined by one pathologist via the telepathology system. Laboratory technicians sampled tissues at gross examination and were connected with the pathologist by videoconference.