Impact of hormonal status on outcome of ductal carcinoma in situ treated with breast-conserving surgery plus radiotherapy: Long-term experience from two large-institutional series.

Background: Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is a heterogeneous disease, for which the best adjuvant treatment is still uncertain. Many attempts of risk-groups stratification have been made over time, developing prognostic scores to predict risk of local recurrence (LR) on the basis of features such as age, final surgical margins (FSM) status, grade, and tumor size. The aim of our analysis was to evaluate the patterns of recurrence from a two large-institutional retrospective series.

Evaluation of vestibular biopsy features in patients affected by fibromyalgia, by vulvodynia or by their association.

Objective: To evaluate the histologic features of vestibular biopsies from patients affected by fibro myalgia (FM), or vulvodynia (VD), or the their association (FM-VD) in order to facilitate differential diagnosis among conditions that present sexual pain with similar clinical characteristics.

Study Design: Fourty-four women already diagnosed with FM were recruited to evaluate the presence of sexual pain not owing to FM. Fourteen women affected by sexual pain of unknown origin who came to our department requesting treatment were also recruited.

Prediction of response to bacillus Calmette-Guérin treatment in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer patients through interleukin-6 and interleukin-10 ratio.

This study aimed to evaluate whether the interleukin-6 (IL-6) and interleukin-10 (IL-10) ratio (IL-6/IL-10) can be used as a prognostic marker of recurrence following bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) therapy in patients with high-risk non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC). One hundred and twenty-one consecutive urological patients (72 affected by high-risk NMIBC and 49 controls) were selected for this prospective study. Urine samples for dipstick and interleukin analyses were collected from each subject before surgery.

The use of digital images to evaluate the interobserver agreement on cervical smear readings in Italian cervical cancer screening.

Objective: The aim of this study was to measure interobserver agreement among cytologists on using a set of digital images.

Methods: A set of 90 selected Papanicolaou-stained cervical smears were digitalized and the digital images circulated among 117 readers, from laboratories spread across almost all Italian regions. Three representative fields of each smear were displayed at 20× and 40× magnification (overall six images for each case).

In vivo microwave-induced porcine kidney thermoablation: results and perspectives from a pilot study of a new probe.

Objective: To test the in vivo effects (toxicity, completeness of necrosis, dimensions of the lesion) of microwave thermoablation on porcine kidneys, using the Amica Probe v3 (Hospital Service SpA, Aprilia, Italy), in a refrigerated 17-G microwave applicator, that can be used to induce a spherical necrotic area.

Patients And Methods: Six pigs were used; each kidney was treated, with no kidney pedicle clamping, by microwave thermoablation at least in three different zones with different exposure times and power, during open surgery. Twelve kidneys had 32 microwave thermoablations overall.