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Background:The one-step nucleic acid amplification (OSNA) assay is a rapid procedure for the detection of lymph node (LN) metastases using molecular biological techniques. The aim of this study was to assess the reliability of the whole sentinel lymph node (SLN) analysis by the OSNA assay as a predictor of non-SLN metastases.Methods:Consecutive 742 patients with breast cancer were enroled in the study. The association of non-SLN or 4 LN metastases with clinicopathological variables was investigated using multivariate logistic analysis.Results:In total, 130 patients with a positive SLN who underwent complete axillary LN dissection were investigated. The frequency of non-SLN metastases in patients who were OSNA+ and ++ was 19.3% and 53.4%, respectively, and that in patients with 4 LN metastases who were OSNA+ and ++ was 7.0% and 27.4%, respectively. The cytokeratin 19 (CK19) mRNA copy number (5.0 × 103; OSNA++) in the SLN was the most significant predictors of non-SLN metastases (P=0.003). The CK19 mRNA copy number (1.0 × 105) in the SLN was the only independent predictor of 4 LN metastases (P=0.014).Conclusion:Whole SLN analysis using the OSNA assay could become a valuable method for predicting non-SLN and 4 LN metastases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate the aetiological role of human papillomavirus (HPV) in breast cancer, we examined the presence, genotype, viral load, and physical status of HPV in 124 Japanese female patients with breast carcinoma. Human papillomavirus presence was examined by PCR using SPF10 primers, and primer sets targeting the E6 region of HPV-16, -18, and -33. The INNO-LiPA HPV genotyping kit was used to determine genotype. Human papillomavirus DNA was detected in 26 (21%) breast carcinomas. The most frequently detected HPV genotype was HPV-16 (92%), followed by HPV-6 (46%), HPV-18 (12%), and HPV-33 (4%). In 11 normal epithelium specimens adjacent to 11 HPV-16-positive carcinomas, 7 were HPV-16-positive. However, none of the normal breast tissue specimens adjacent to HPV-negative breast carcinomas were HPV-positive. The real-time PCR analysis suggested the presence of integrated form of viral DNA in all HPV-16-positive samples, and estimated viral load was low with a geometric mean of 5.4 copies per 10(4) cells. In conclusion, although HPV DNA was detected in 26 (21%) breast carcinomas and, in all HPV-16-positive cases, the HPV genome was considered integrated into the host genome, their low viral loads suggest it is unlikely that integrated HPV is aetiologically involved in the development of Japanese breast carcinomas that we examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "Maspin expression is up-regulated during the progression of endometrioid endometrial carcinoma," in previous issue of Histopathology.

Experimental acute bacterial prostatitis in rats was induced by four different routes of bacterial inoculation. The most simple and reproducible method of producing bacterial prostatitis was to instil the bacterial suspension into the prostatic urethra after the administration of an appropriate antibiotic to prevent associated pyelonephritis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on social change in Norway during 1930-1980. A major difficulty arises in tracing social change over a given historical period. People must step into history at what will inevitably be an arbitrary point in time in the sense that conditions at the beginning of a period inevitably will be colored by what went on before. This is particularly striking in the case of Norway in and around 1930. The years corresponding to the First World War represented an economic boom in Norway, since its exports were in great demand by the warring nations. But the bubble burst in 1920 and from then until well into the 1930s, the economy went into a decline. During the late 1920s and 1930s, Norway experienced a return to the primary sector, after an earlier period during which industry and services had grown at the expense of the primary sector. Here it is important to distinguish between what the figures used by economists in their construction of economic history show, and what people learn by looking at information concerning individuals and households. The growth in the Norwegian economy, when measured in monetary units, continued to take place in industry and services, but the primary sector did not lose population to the rest of the economy in a corresponding fashion.