The genetics of Wilms' tumour (WT), a paediatric malignancy of the kidney, is complex. Inactivation of the tumour suppressor gene, WT1, is associated with tumour aetiology in approximately 10-15% of WTs. Chromosome 17p changes have been noted in cytogenetic studies of WTs, prompting us to screen 140 WTs for p53 mutations. When histopathology reports were available, p53 mutations were present in eight of eleven anaplastic WTs, a tumour subtype associated with poor prognosis. Amplification of MDM2, a gene whose product binds and sequesters p53, was excluded. Our results indicate that p53 alterations provide a molecular marker for anaplastic WTs.

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propriate to such a process for the systems under consideration. The transition probabilities per unit time are taken from first-order quantum mechanical perturbation theory.This procedure leaves open the question of how far such probabilistic equations are derivable from the exact quantum dynamical equations of motion. Implicit in our approach is the assumption (which has been used, for example, by Pauli 3 in his derivation of the £T-theorem) that the occupation numbers remain good quantum numbers for all time. Since the occupation numbers correspond to diagonal elements of a density matrix, it is not obvious why, during the course of time, nondiagonal matrix elements should not become equally important. Pauli eliminated them by invoking random phase averages at all times. Considerable progress has been made recently in clarifying this situation, mainly through the work of Van Hove, 4 Brout, 5 and Prigogine 6 which provides both a critique of and a justification for the use of a master equation. In particular, Van Hove has succeeded in deriving the 3 W. Pauli, Festschrift zum 60 Gebiirtstag A. Sommerfelds (S.

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