Spontaneously ruptured endometriomas presenting with symptoms and imaging findings worrisome for carcinomatosis: A case report.

Introduction And Importance: Endometriomas are the most common presenting subtype of endometriosis. Although most endometriomas are asymptomatic, patients can rarely present acutely with spontaneous rupture causing diffuse peritonitis and severe systemic inflammatory response.

Case Presentation: Here we describe a case of ruptured endometriomas in a 26-year-old nulligravid female with a history of heavy menses, progressive abdominal distension, and a recent urinary tract infection.

Ruptured granulosa cell tumor of the ovary presenting with catastrophic intra-abdominal hemorrhage: A case report.

Introduction And Importance: Adult granulosa cell tumor (GCT) is a rare stromal cell neoplasm that most often arises from the ovary. Presenting symptoms are related to external compression of adjacent structures (mass effect) or secretion of hormones such as estrogen. Patients most commonly present with irregular menstruation, postmenopausal bleeding, and abdominal pain.

An iOS App to Expedite the Evaluation of Immunohistochemistry Control Tissue.

Control tissues play a vital role in diagnostic immunohistochemistry. They serve to document that the appropriate antibody was used, on the correct control tissue, and run on optimized conditions. As part of the evolving process of standardization in diagnostic immunohistochemistry, specific tissues have been identified based on agreement by experts in this field capable of serving as the benchmark(s) for several antibodies.

Front-end genomics: using an alternative approach for the recovery of high-quality DNA from core needle biopsies.

Aims: Determine whether a simple prewash step will provide adequate amounts of high-quality DNA from core needle biopsies for molecular sequencing studies.

Methods: The quantitative and qualitative metrics of DNA recovered from core needle biopsies processed either by 1) formalin fixation and paraffin embedding (FFPE), 2) cells recovered after the core needle biopsy was washed, and 3) frozen sections of the core needle biopsy tissue were evaluated and compared to one another.

Results: Fairly equivalent amounts of DNA can be obtained from cells recovered from a prewash step relative to the FFPE and frozen section samples.

Core Needle Biopsy Wash Optimization: Enabling Specimen Integrity for both Cytological and Histological Evaluation.

Background: The recovery of cells after washing core needle biopsies represents an under-utilized approach to extend the diagnostic capacity of these diminutive specimens. Recovery of these cells can be dedicated for molecular studies so that the biopsy itself can be used apropos for its intended purpose, diagnosis. Non-enzymatic and enzymatic reagents have the potential to increase the number of cells dissociating from the tissue core, but can also negatively impact the quality of the tissue itself.

Maximizing derivable information from cytologic specimens for pathologic and molecular diagnostics.

Introduction: The advent of precision medicine will increase the demand for molecular testing on patient tumor specimens. Cytology specimens have been shown to be ideal substrates for molecular testing, but their often paucicellular nature can lead to conflicts in prioritizing sample management. A microfluidic platform was investigated to determine whether cytologic and molecular data could be procured from the same cells, obviating the need for partitioning a sample by multiplexing it instead.

Immunohistochemical detection of arginine methylated proteins (MeRP) in archival tissues.

Aims: To (i) determine whether methylarginine-specific antibodies can be employed for standard immunohistochemical analysis of paraffin-embedded tissues, (ii) analyse methylarginine expression in normal and neoplastic tissues and (iii) correlate methylarginine expression with that of protein arginine methyltransferase (PRMT1), the predominant cellular arginine methyltransferase.

Methods And Results: Immunohistochemistry of normal and cancer tissues was performed utilizing three commercial polyclonal antibodies: anti-methylarginine-specific antibody (anti-mRG) raised against a methylarginine peptide, Control antibody (anti-RG), a control antiserum raised against a corresponding arginine peptide without any methylated residues and anti-PRMT1. Nuclear and/or cytoplasmic methylarginine expression was detected in all keratinized and non-keratinized epithelia.

Importance of cell-procurement methods in transforming personalized cancer treatment from concept to reality.

The much-anticipated promise of personalized cancer care is to deliver therapies best suited for a patient based on the knowledge of that individual's genetics and tumor characteristics. This transformative approach will require many changes in the scientific and medical community, one of the most fundamental being the direct study of human tissue biospecimens. Biospecimens will be integral to the elucidation of biomarkers that will help identify and serve as potential diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic targets in cancer.

A comparative analysis of two tissue procurement approaches for the genomic profiling of clinical colorectal cancer samples.

Background: The basis for personalized medicine is the creation of a repository of knowledge about the genetic alterations involved in disease processes. Integral to achieving this goal is the querying of well-preserved, high-quality human tissue samples. Making these findings relevant involves the interrogation of large numbers of samples.

Universal Reference RNA is not a representative normal sample for oligonucleotide microarray studies.

Translational research has been defined as the scientific study using human material that will ultimately generate patient specific data. A major caveat in human directed study is the availability of high quality and quantities of patient derived homogeneous cells for analysis. Whereas there exist sources for which tumor tissue and blood samples can be made available, the same cannot be said for normal tissue.

An exfoliation and enrichment strategy results in improved transcriptional profiles when compared to matched formalin fixed samples.

Background: Identifying the influence formalin fixation has on RNA integrity and recovery from clinical tissue specimens is integral to determining the utility of using archival tissue blocks in future molecular studies. For clinical material, the current gold standard is unfixed tissue that has been snap frozen. Fixed and frozen tissue however, both require laser capture microdissection to select for a specific cell population to study.

Presence of the BRAF V600E point mutation in morphologically benign appearing thyroid inclusions of cervical lymph nodes.

The biologic nature of morphologically bland-appearing thyroid inclusions in cervical lymph nodes continues to be a controversial topic. The diagnosis of benignity entails a much more conservative clinical approach than does malignancy. Arriving at the correct interpretation, however, can be difficult when only morphologic examination is performed.

Manual exfoliation plus immunomagnetic bead separation as an initial step toward translational research.

Context: The development of biotechnologic platforms capable of high throughput analysis has ushered in a promising new era of translational medicine. However, most studies to date are based on in vitro cell lines or substitute models for human disease. Although these model systems have proven insightful, it is readily becoming apparent that human clinical tissue must be studied in order to fully understand all the nuances of human disease.

Manual exfoliation of fresh tissue obviates the need for frozen sections for molecular profiling.

Background: Simple, rapid tissue processing that preserves macromolecules will enhance translational research capabilities. Traditional fixative-based approaches for specimen preservation are ideal for histologic evaluation but are not conducive to molecular studies of nucleic acids and protein. Tissue cryosections preserve macromolecule integrity, but the process is labor intensive and technically challenging.