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This review covers aspects of adrenal cortical tumours, phaeochromocytoma and extra-adrenal paragangliomas. Relevant clinical and epidemiological information is included. It is now known that about 30% of paragangliomas occur in a familial setting and these new aspects of the genetic background are presented. The main diagnostic problem in both groups of tumours is the recognition of malignant potential. The uses and limitations of multifactorial histological assessment in diagnosis and prognosis are discussed. Finally, data on the molecular changes associated with tumorigenesis and tumour progression are highlighted, and how this information may contribute in future to diagnosis and prognosis., (© 2010 Blackwell Publishing Limited.)

Aims: Using a standardized immunohistochemical assay we have evaluated 575 primary neoplasms of different histogenesis to determine the incidence of HER2 overexpression in some of the most common categories of human solid neoplasms. This study addresses the variable incidence of HER2 overexpression previously published for some tumour types., Methods and Results: The immunohistochemical staining was performed on paraffin sections of surgical specimens and a well-defined scoring system based upon numbers of HER2 receptors expressed on the cell surface was applied. Overexpression of HER2 as defined as a HER2 score of equal or greater than 2 was seen in breast cancer (22%), pulmonary adenocarcinoma (28%), colorectal adenocarcinomas (17%), pulmonary squamous (11%) and gastric adenocarcinomas (11%). As expected, the proportion of cases with a HER2 score of 3 was highest in breast cancer. Contrary to published results prostate and pancreas adenocarcinomas showed a very low incidence of HER2 overexpression., Conclusions: Overexpression of HER2 is detected immunohistochemically in a proportion of epithelial neoplasms of diverse histogenesis in addition to ductal breast cancer. The standardized format of the assay will allow comparative analyses of studies performed at different institutions.

A case of primary cutaneous plasmacytoma in a 16-year-old male is described. The neoplastic nature of the plasma cell infiltrate has been clearly established by the demonstration of monoclonal kappa immunoglobulin light-chain mRNA using in situ hybridization with biotin-labelled oligonucleotide probes applied to routine tissue sections.

This review highlights various aspects of the new functional classification of pituitary adenomas which is based on detailed immunohistochemical and ultrastructural analysis and correlation with clinical and biochemical findings. In addition, current investigation of the non-hormonal aspects of these tumours is discussed, including the application of flow cytometry in tumour ploidy studies.