Pulmonary lymphangioleiomyomatosis (PLAM) is a rare disease with poor prognosis, characterized by an abnormal proliferation of smooth muscle. The patients are females and recurrent pneumothorax is a frequent complication. HMB45 is a monoclonal antibody with specific immunoreactivity for malignant melanoma. Recently, it was reported that some of the smooth muscle cells in PLAM had reactivity for...

Perivascular epithelioid cell tumors (PEComas) represent a rare group of tumours with uncertain malignancy potential exhibiting an immunophenotype characterized by actin and Human Melanoma Black 45 (HMB45) immunoreactivity. Our case concerns about a rare malignant uterine perivascular epithelioid cell tumour diagnosed in a patient underwent to subtotal hysterectomy with unclear diagnosis, 12 ye...

OBJECTIVE To describe the morphologic spectrum of metastatic malignant melanoma (MM) cells involving the breast and to explore the diagnostic utility of HMB45, Mart-1, Melan-A and T311 (antityrosinase) antibodies in fine needle aspiration material of MM metastatic to the breast. STUDY DESIGN Cytologic material from 21 cases (18 women) was reviewed for cytomorphology (epithelioid, spindled, mi...

AIM To compare the sensitivity and staining pattern of the new immunohistochemical antibody to tyrosinase (T311) with S-100, HMB45, and the recently evaluated antibody to melan-A (A103) in a range of melanocytic lesions. METHOD Archival, formalin fixed, paraffin wax embedded sections from 50 benign and malignant melanocytic lesions were stained immunohistochemically with anti-tyrosinase, A103...

OBJECTIVE Recent studies indicate that WT1 and Bcl2 protein are detected in melanocytic lesions of the skin. We examined, for the first time, WT1 and Bcl2 expression in a variety of conjunctival melanocytic lesions to evaluate their diagnostic utility compared with other melanocytic markers. METHODS Protein expression and localization of WT1 and Bcl2 were studied by means of immunolabeling an...

Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM) is a rare lung disease affecting almost exclusively young women, characterised by abnormal proliferation of atypical smooth muscle cells. We describe a young woman presenting with chyluria secondary to the presence of a large retroperitoneal lymphangioleiomyoma. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed HMB45-negative LAM cells (HMB45 staining is absent only in rare c...

BACKGROUND Melanoma is a skin cancer which treatment requires early diagnosis and large surgical removal. The histopathological diagnosis of a melanocytic tumour is sometimes difficult between a benign nevus and a malignant melanoma. We built an immunomarker-based score to differentiate nevi from melanomas. METHODS Two independent sets of 308 (first set) and 62 (validation set) formalin-fixed...

perivascular epithelioid cell tumor (pecoma) is composed of hmb45+ epithelioid cells with clear to granular cytoplasm and perivascular distribution. we describe a uterine pecoma in a 33 years old woman where tumor cells were positive for hmb45 but negative for epithelial markers and negative or positive for smooth muscles markers.

PURPOSE Improved detection of early-disseminated melanoma cells may eventually translate into more effective patient care. We present a novel strategy for detection of melanoma cells in sentinel lymph nodes and confirm their malignant descent by genomic characterization. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN In sentinel lymph nodes from 358 melanoma patients, we prospectively compared the rates of tumor cell d...