Do clinically insignificant tumors of the prostate exist?

Background: The discrepancy between minimal disease on biopsy and disease found in the subsequent prostatectomy specimen, in terms of the size and grade of tumor, extracapsular extension or positive margins, led several authors to dispute the existence of clinically insignificant impalpable tumors of the prostate. However, considering that prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is an indicator of prostate malignancy and since many impalpable prostatic carcinomas (PCs) are detected by a combination of PSA, transurethral ultrasound and needle biopsy (T1c), in the era of PSA screening, it is expected that most of the impalpable tumors found incidentally at transurethral resection of the prostate (stage T1a/b), could be clinically insignificant.

Aim: The aim of this study was to identify the characteristics of latent, impalpable PCs and to analyze the incidence of clinically insignificant PCs among hypothetical stage T1 prostate cancers in tumors found incidentally at postmortem examination.

Impact of additional sampling in the TRUS-guided biopsy for the diagnosis of prostate cancer.

Aim: To evaluate the diagnostic value of 10+ systematic sampling technique when performing transrectal ultrasound-guided (TRUS) prostate biopsy, compared with the sextant biopsy technique for patients with suspected prostate cancer.

Methods: 286 patients with suspected prostate cancer were included in the study. Patients were eligible for the study if they had serum levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) >4 ng/ml or ratio PSA <0.

Endometriosis of ureter-induced recurrent urinary tract infections in a premenopausal woman--case report.

Endometriosis of the urinary tract is infrequent. The ureters and kidneys are the least usual place of localization. Endometriosis of the ureter often leads to silent loss of renal function due to delayed diagnosis.

Dietary intake in immigrant Arabian pregnant women.

Objective: We examined the intake of dietary micronutrients of immigrant Arabian pregnant women in Greece, in order to investigate the possible factors influencing food intake and affecting the overall nutritional profile.

Methods: A dietary assessment of 497 immigrant Arabian pregnant women, admitted to the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department, Outpatient Clinic, Tzaneion General Hospital, Piraeus city, Vyronas Health Center, and Alexandras General Hospital, Athens, Greece was performed between August 2002 and August 2005, along with a comparison of micronutrient intake with the latest dietary recommendations. We carried out blood analysis, and measurements of serum micronutrients in all participants.

An evaluation of contrast enhancement techniques for mammographic breast masses.

The main aim of this paper is to propose a novel set of metrics that measure the quality of the image enhancement of mammographic images in a computer-aided detection framework aimed at automatically finding masses using machine learning techniques. Our methodology includes a novel mechanism for the combination of the metrics proposed into a single quantitative measure. We have evaluated our methodology on 200 images from the publicly available digital database for screening mammograms.