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Melanosis, the aberrant deposition of melanin pigment in the absence of melanocytes, is very rare in the genitourinary tract. We report a case of a 74-year-old male with symptomatic benign prostatic hyperplasia. Diagnostic cystourethroscopy demonstrated bladder mucosa remarkable for numerous flat, velvety, and brown-black lesions. The patient underwent cystolitholapaxy, transurethral resection of the prostate, and bladder biopsy. Microscopic examination of the bladder biopsy demonstrated urothelium with granular, black pigmentation within the mucosa and histiocytes in the lamina propria; a Fontana Masson stain was positive for melanin. Microscopic examination of the transurethral resection of the prostate demonstrated nodular hyperplasia with focal, black pigmentation of the stroma. The rarity of bladder and prostate melanosis highlights the need for further investigation to elucidate its clinical significance and provide assurance of its benignity. Despite its rarity, melanosis should be kept in the differential diagnosis when melanotic lesions are encountered during cystoscopy.

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CASE: A 68-year-old woman with a history of stage IIIC (T3bN1bM0) melanoma with metastases to her right axilla status after 10 cycles of nivolumab presented with right shoulder pain. Radiographs showed a progressive erosive glenohumeral joint lesion. The workup was negative for metastasis and infection. Her clinical and radiographic findings were consistent with erosive arthritis. The patient underwent shoulder hemiarthroplasty and experienced substantial improvements. CONCLUSION: This is an unusual case of inflammatory arthritis associated with nivolumab, an antiprogrammed cell death protein 1, and is an important reminder of the musculoskeletal toxicities associated with immunotherapies.

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We describe a patient presenting with bilateral radiologically similar lung lesions initially diagnosed as immunoglobulin (Ig) G4-related disease from biopsy of one lesion, but radiographic changes 6 months later prompted biopsy of the second lesion and showed adenocarcinoma. No case of lung IgG4-related disease and a distant lung malignancy has been previously reported. This is notable because lung IgG4-related disease often manifests in multiple thoracic locations but is diagnosed from a representative biopsy specimen.

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BACKGROUND: The role of vitamin E in breast cancer prevention and treatment has been widely investigated, and the different tocopherols that comprise this nutrient have been shown to have divergent associations with cancer outcome. Our previous studies have shown that α-Tocopherol-associated protein (TAP), a vitamin E binding protein, may function as a tumor suppressor-like factor in breast carcinogenesis. The current study addresses the association of TAP expression with breast cancer clinical outcomes. METHODS: Immunohistochemical stain for TAP was applied to a tissue microarray from a breast cancer cohort consisting of 271 patients with a median follow-up time of 5.2 years. The expression of TAP in tumor cells was compared with patient's clinical outcome at 5 years after diagnosis. The potential role of TAP in predicting outcome was also assessed in clinically relevant subsets of the cohort. In addition, we compared TAP expression and Oncotype DX scores in an independent breast cancer cohort consisting of 71 cases. RESULTS: We demonstrate that the expression of TAP was differentially expressed within the breast cancer cohort, and that ER+/PR ± tumors were more likely to exhibit TAP expression. TAP expression was associated with an overall lower recurrence rate and a better 5-year survival rate. This association was primarily in patients with ER+ tumors; exploratory analysis showed that this association was strongest in patients with node-positive tumors and was independent of stage and treatment with chemotherapy. TAP expression in ER/PR negative or triple negative tumors had no association with clinical outcome. In addition, we did not observe an association between TAP expression and Oncotype DX recurrence score. CONCLUSIONS: The significant positive association we found for α-Tocopherol-associated protein with outcome in breast cancer may help to better define and explain studies addressing α-tocopherol's association with cancer risk and outcome. Additionally, further studies to validate and extend these findings may allow TAP to serve as a breast-specific prognostic marker in breast cancer patients, especially in those patients with ER+ tumors.

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BACKGROUND: The diagnosis of pancreatic tumors is often complicated because of sampling and interpretive challenges. The current study was performed to determine the rates, types, and causes of diagnostic discrepancies. METHODS: The authors retrospectively reviewed cytology cases from 2004 to 2010 using matched surgical resection cases as the gold standard. RESULTS: A total of 733 cases were divided into 3 categories: 1) positive or suspicious (290 cases); 2) negative or atypical (403 cases); and 3) unsatisfactory (40 cases). Of these cases, 101 fine-needle aspiration (FNA) cases had matched surgical resections including 58 positive diagnoses, 39 negative diagnoses, and 4 unsatisfactory diagnoses. All 19 discrepant cases represented false-negative diagnoses without any false-positive cases noted, which included 2 cases with interpretive errors (10%) and 17 cases with sampling errors (90%). All matched cytology cases were divided into 5 subgroups based on the type of lesion or type of error and were analyzed for sensitivity and specificity. The sampling error rate in cystic lesions (8 of 24; 33%) was significantly higher than that in solid lesions (9 of 73; 12%). The false-negative rate in the interpretive error group (3%) was significantly lower than that in the sampling error group (23%). CONCLUSIONS: The results of the current study confirm that pancreatic endoscopic ultrasound-guided FNA diagnosis has a very low false-positive rate but a relatively high false-negative rate using matched surgical resections as the gold standard. The major cause of a false-negative cytology diagnosis is sampling error and the rate of sampling error in cystic lesions is significantly higher than that in solid lesions.

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A 7-year-old boy presented with fulminant hepatic failure requiring liver transplant. Serologic testing ruled out infectious and autoimmune causes. During transplant surgery he was found to have enlarged periportal lymph nodes that were biopsied. Nodular lymphocyte-predominant Hodgkin lymphoma was diagnosed based on histologic examination of the lymph node and liver. The L&H cells within the lymph node were positive for CD20 whereas those within the liver were not, although they were positive for other B-cell markers. After extensive work-up, the cause of liver failure could only be attributed to the involvement by lymphoma. In addition, B-cell clonality was established among the neoplastic cells with the same clone detected in all sampled tissues. Hodgkin lymphoma as a cause of hepatic failure is rare and has not been previously reported in a pediatric patient.

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