No abstract

This paper presents a method for the quantification of cellular rejection in endomyocardial biopsies of patients submitted to heart transplant. The model is based on automatic multilevel thresholding, which employs histogram quantification techniques, histogram slope percentage analysis and the calculation of maximum entropy. The structures were quantified with the aid of the multi-scale fractal dimension and lacunarity for the identification of behavior patterns in myocardial cellular rejection in order to determine the most adequate treatment for each case.

Introduction:Intraoperative frozen section analysis has become a routine procedure to evaluate the status of axillary sentinel lymph nodes in breast cancer. Objectives: To evaluate the accuracy and sensitivity of FS in the detection of metastases in axillary sentinel lymph nodes and to investigate the predictive value of variables such as patients' age, tumor staging, histology, grade, and estrogen receptor expression. Material and Methods: We analyzed retrospectively the results of 177 FS procedures. The patients' age and tumor characteristics were organized in a database and the association with the presence of metastases was analyzed. Results: Metastases were detected in 22 cases (12%). All macrometastases and one micrometastasis were detected by FS. Additional micrometastases were detected in post-operative analysis, from which five were determined by hematoxylin and eosin staining (H&E) and three by immunohistochemistry (IHC). FS diagnosis data proved to have an overall accuracy of 95%, sensitivity of 64%, and specificity of 100%. None of the analyzed variables showed significant association with lymph node metastases. Conclusion: Our results show that intraoperative FS is a highly accurate and sensitive method to detect macrometastases. However, it is inaccurate in the detection of micrometastases.

No abstract

Herpes Simplex virus (HSV) type I is a common infectious agent of nongenital areas and has been diagnosed most frequently in esophagitis even in otherwise healthy subjects. Although some mild cellular alterations are commonly seen in this disease they can hardly be so intense as to simulate a carcinoma in situ of squamous epithelium.  We report such a case and call attention to the possibility of an overdiagnosis of cancer. Some observations in literature relating HSV infection. to cancer are also made.