Accurate Gleason score, pathologic stage, and surgical margin (SM) information is critical for the planning of post-radical prostatectomy management in patients with prostate cancer. Although interobserver variability for Gleason score among urologic pathologists has been well documented, such data for pathologic stage and SM assessment are limited. We report the first study to address interobserver variability in a group of expert pathologists concerning extraprostatic soft tissue (EPE) and SM interpretation for radical prostatectomy specimens. A panel of 3 urologic pathologists selected 6 groups of 10 slides designated as being positive, negative, or equivocal for either EPE or SM based on unanimous agreement. Twelve expert urologic pathologists, who were blinded to the panel diagnoses, reviewed 40x whole-slide scans and provided diagnoses for EPE and SM on each slide. On the basis of panel diagnoses, as the gold standard, specificity, sensitivity, and accuracy values were high for both EPE (87.5%, 95.0%, and 91.2%) and SM (97.5%, 83.3%, and 90.4%). Overall kappa values for all 60 slides were 0.74 for SM and 0.63 for EPE. The kappa values were higher for slides with definitive gold standard EPE (kappa=0.81) and SM (kappa=0.73) diagnoses when compared with the EPE (kappa=0.29) and SM (kappa=0.62) equivocal slides. This difference was markedly pronounced for EPE. Urologic pathologists show good to excellent agreement when evaluating EPE and SM. Interobserver variability for EPE and SM interpretation was principally related to the lack of a clearly definable prostatic capsule and crush/thermal artifact along the edge of the gland, respectively.

✓ Subacute posttraumatic ascending myelopathy is a rare disorder, unrelated to syrinx formation or mechanical instability, that may gradually emerge within the first 1 to 2 weeks after a spinal cord injury. The authors describe three patients with this syndrome and discuss its possible causes as well as its clinical presentation, imaging characteristics, treatment, and patient prognosis.

Selected patients with transrectal ultrasound (TRUS)-guided biopsies containing Gleason score 3 + 4 = 7 prostate cancer (PCa) may be considered candidates for active surveillance (AS). The purpose of this study was to determine if there are features that predict PCa upstaging and/or upgrading after radical prostatectomy (RP) in patients with Gleason score 3 + 4 = 7 PCa diagnosed on TRUS-guided biopsies. We searched our institution's database for patients with Gleason score 3 + 4 = 7 PCa diagnosed on TRUS-guided biopsy who underwent subsequent RP between January 2010 and January 2015. Two blinded genitourinary pathologists independently reviewed and assessed the following on biopsies: (a) nuclear size, nucleolar size and distribution of macronucleoli of PCa, which were subjectively graded using a semi-quantitative scale from 1 to 3, and (b) PCa with cribriform morphology and the size of cribriform disease. Patient age, serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and PSA density (PSAD) were also recorded. The Gleason score and stage (presence or absence of organ-confined disease (OCD)) were retrieved from RP reports. Comparisons were performed between groups using the chi-square test and Spearman correlation. One hundred and four patients were identified to have met inclusion criteria. The mean age was 63 (±6.1) years. Mean PSA and PSAD at diagnosis were 7.5 (±4.2) and 0.25 (±0.15) ng/mL, respectively. Gleason scores were upgraded to greater than 3 + 4 = 7 in 26.9 % (28/104) of patients, and 44.2 % (46/104) of patients had no OCD after RP. There was no correlation between age, PSA, PSAD or percent of biopsies with Gleason pattern 4 for either Gleason score upgrading or absence of OCD at the time of RP (p > 0.05). Thirty patients had cribriform morphology on TRUS-guided biopsy of which 60 % (18/30) had no OCD at RP (p = 0.04) while 36.7 % (11/30) were upgraded to Gleason score ≥3 + 4 = 7 after RP (p = 0.15). There was no association between nuclear size, nucleolar size and/or distribution of macronucleoli with upgrading and/or absence of OCD (p > 0.05). The size of cribriform pattern was not associated with the absence of OCD (p = 0.43) or Gleason score upgrade (p = 0.28). A proportion of patients with Gleason score 3 + 4 = 7 PCa at needle biopsy do not have OCD or are upgraded to higher Gleason scores after RP. In our study, patients with Gleason score 3 + 4 = 7 PCa with the presence of cribriform pattern 4 had a significantly increased chance of being found to have no OCD at the time of RP. There were no clinical or pathologic parameters at the time of TRUS-guided biopsy that identified risk factors for Gleason score upgrading at RP in this study. Cribriform morphology detected on biopsy in patients with Gleason score 3 + 4 = 7 PCa is associated with tumour upstaging after RP and may be considered a contraindication to active surveillance.

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