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Abstract. The collective immunohistochemical expression of human lysozyme, human alpha-1 -antitrypsin, human CD3 antigen, calf vimentin, human keratins, human lambda light chains, canine immunoglobulins IgG, IgM, and bovine protein S-100 has been analyzed on formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue sections of 25 spontaneous canine transmissible venereal tumors (CTVT) from both genital and extragenital locations using the avidin-biotin-peroxidase complex technique. Lysozyme immunoreactivity was detected in 10/25 CTVT, alpha-1-antitrypsin in 14/25 CTVT, and vimentin in 25/25 CTVT. All CTVT cells were negative to keratins 5 + 8 of the Moll catalogue (RCK-102), S-100 protein, lambda light-chain immunoglobulins, IgG, IgM, and CD3 antigen. The intratumoral T-and B-lymphocyte infiltrate was differentiated using CD3 antigen, lambda light-chain immunoglobulins, IgG, and IgM, and this technique could be useful to evaluate the regressive or progressive growth stage of venereal tumors. Our findings support the hypothesis of a histiocytic immunophenotype for CTVT, and these staining techniques could be used in the differential diagnosis with lymphomas.Key words: Dogs; immunocytochemistry; round cell tumors; transmissible venereal tumors.Canine transmissible venereal tumor (CTVT) is a round cell neoplasm occurring on external genital mucosae and is transmitted by cell implantation during coitus, licking, or other interaction between an affected dog and a susceptible host in endemic regions.44 Although the tumor primarily spreads locally to the external genitalia21 and metastasis is rare, it has also been reported in the inguinal lymph nodes, skin, lips, and buccal and nasal mucosa1, 3,25,26,35,39 and less frequently in the tonsils, liver, pancreas, spleen, lung, kidney, and mesenteric lymph n~d e~.~x~~.~~,~~,~~,~~ Extragenital occurrence of CTVT without genital lesions has been reported in the nasal cavity,17,20,36,37,46 conjunctiva and eye,'^^,^^ kin,^^,^^ tonsils, buccal muco~a,~O and anal mucosa.6 These atypical locations of CTVT can be due either to a previous regression of the primary genital t~m~r~~,~~ or to implantation of tumor cells on external mucous membranes by licking and ~n i f f i n g .~~.~~ In these atypical cases, it is usually difficult to carry out a differential diagnosis with other canine round cell tumors such as lymphomas, histiocytomas, poorly differentiated mast cell tumors, amelanotic melanomas, and poorly differentiated carcinomas. 15,17,36,46 Although round cell tumors have been immunocharacterized using several tumor markers,2,4J4J9,31,32,43 few immunohistochemical studies on the CTVT have been made so far23,43 and the cell origin and immunophenotype remain Spontaneous regression of CTVT may occur, and recovered dogs can acquire humoral and cellular immunity, which prevents subsequent t~m o r s .~,~~ Some authors have found a significant increase of T lymphocytes infiltrating the tumor masses of spontaneous regressive CTVT. 1,29,45 These lymphocytes were identified using anti-thymocyte sera in fr...

A computerized method to automatically detect malignant masses on digital mammograms based on bilateral subtraction to identify asymmetries between left and right breast images was developed. After the digitization, in order to align left and right mammograms the breast border and nipple were automatically detected. Images were corrected to avoid differences in brightness due to the recording procedure. Left and right mammograms were subtracted and a threshold was applied to obtain a binary image with the information of suspicious areas. The suspicious regions or asymmetries were delimited by a region growing algorithm. Size and eccentricity tests were used to eliminate false-positive responses and texture features were extracted from suspicious regions to reject normal tissue regions. The scheme, tested in 70 pairs of digital mammograms, achieved a true-positive rate of 71% with an average number of 0.67 false positives per image. Computerized detection was evaluated by using free-response operating characteristic analysis (FROC). An area under the AFROC (A1) of 0.667 was obtained. Our results show that the scheme may be helpful to the radiologists by serving as a second reader in mammographic screening. The low number of false positives indicates that our scheme would not confuse the radiologist by suggesting normal regions as suspicious.

The functional activity of von Willebrand factor (VWF) is most frequently measured by using the ristocetin cofactor assay (VWF:RCo). However, the method's drawbacks include unsatisfactory precision, sensitivity and availability of automated system applications. We have developed an alternative assay (INNOVANCE VWF Ac) that is based on the binding of VWF to recombinant glycoprotein Ib (GPIb). Two gain-of-function mutations were introduced into a GPIb fragment, allowing an assay format without ristocetin. Fully automated assay applications are available for the BCS/BCS XP systems and the Sysmex CS-2000i, Sysmex CA-7000, Sysmex CA-1500 and Sysmex CA-560 systems.The INNOVANCE VWF Ac assay measuring range extends from 4 to 600% VWF for all systems except the Sysmex CA-560 system. Within-device precision values were found to be between 2 and 7%. The limit of detection was below 2.2% VWF. In a study on the BCS XP system, a total number of 580 sample results yielded a correlation to the VWF:RCo assay of r equal to 0.99 (slope = 0.96). Very similar results were observed when von Willebrand disease samples type 1, 2A, 2B, 2M, 2N and 3 were investigated with the new assay and the VWF:RCo assay. The excellent performance data and comparability to VWF:RCo, together with the ease of use, led us to the conclusion that the ristocetin cofactor assay can be replaced by the new GPIb-binding assay to reliably diagnosing patients with von Willebrand disease.

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Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a serious disorder caused by intermittent airway obstruction which may have dangerous impact on daily living activities. Heart rate variability (HRV) analysis could be used for diagnosing OSA, since this disease affects HRV during sleep. In order to validate different algorithms developed for detecting OSA employing HRV analysis, several public or proprietary data collections have been employed for different research groups. However, for validation purposes, it is obvious and evident the lack of a common standard database, worldwide recognized and accepted by the scientific community. In this paper, different algorithms employing HRV analysis were applied over diverse public and proprietary databases for detecting OSA, and the outcomes were validated in terms of a statistical analysis. Results indicate that the use of a specific database may strongly affect the performance of the algorithms, due to differences in methodologies of processing. Our results suggest that researchers must strongly take into consideration the database used when quoting their results, since selected cases are highly database dependent and would bias conclusions.