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Tracheobronchial granular cell tumor is a benign tumor with a good prognosis. In symptomatic patients surgical intervention is the first choice of treatment, but local treatment is a reasonable option and gives successful results.

This study aimed to determine protein expression levels of fibroblast growth factor receptors (FGFR) 1, 2 and 3 in early stage non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Additionally, a screen to define the frequency of FGFR3‐TACC3 translocation and FGFR3 amplification was performed. Archived tissues from 653 NSCLC samples (adenocarcinoma (AC), squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and large cell carcinoma (LCC)) were analysed with immunohistochemistry (IHC) for expression of FGFR1, 2 and 3. Expression levels of FGFR1, 2 and 3 were correlated with clinicopathological features. The presence of FGFR3‐TACC3 translocation was detected by RT‐PCR and FGFR3 amplification was detected by fluorescence in situ hybridization. FGFR1, 2 and 3 proteins were highly expressed in 64 (10.6%), 76 (12.9%) and 20 (3.3%) NSCLC tumour samples, respectively. Protein expression of FGFR1 was significantly related to worse overall survival in NSCLC. Furthermore, FGFR1 protein expression was associated with light smoking and histological subtype (AC), FGFR2 protein expression with female gender, younger age, histological subtype (AC) and lower tumour stage, and FGFR3 protein was significantly overexpressed in tumours of older patients and SCC histology. The FGFR3‐TACC3 fusion was detected in 3.0% (6/200) of NSCLC samples and the FGFR3 gene was amplified in 4.7% of IHC positive NSCLC samples (2/43). FGFR1, 2 and 3 proteins are expressed in a high number of early stage NSCLC and FGFR1 protein expression may serve as a prognostic biomarker. Recurrent translocations and amplifications in FGFR3 can be found in NSCLC. This study shows that FGFR family members are frequently aberrant in NSCLC and could be interesting therapeutic targets for the treatment of NSCLC.

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Aim-To determine the interobserver variation in scoring presence and grade of vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia (VIN) in haematoxylin/eosin (H/E) slides, MIB 1 slides, and the combined use of H/E and MIB 1 slides. Methods-10 slides were stained with H/E and MIB 1 with each of the following diagnoses: normal vulvar skin, VIN 1, VIN 2, and VIN 3. Six observers first scored the H/E slides separately from the MIB 1 slides and second the combined H/E and MIB 1 slides. Results-Unweighted group for MIB 1 was 0.62 and the weighted group was 0.91. This was significantly better than the unweighted group for H/E slides (0.47, p = 0.023) as well as the weighted group for H/E slides (0.82, p = 0.014). There was no improvement by the combined use of H/E and MIB 1 slides. VIN 2 is far less confused with VIN 3 in the combined use of H/E and MIB 1 slides (9%) than in H/E slides (38%) (p = 0.007). There is a tendency to grade VIN in a two tailed grading system rather than a three tailed grading system, which became more apparent with the combined use of H/E and MIB 1 slides. Conclusions-The interobserver variation with sole use of MIB 1 is better than with the use of H/E stain in VIN. The use of MIB 1 in grading VIN diminishes confusion between VIN 2 and VIN 3 fourfold. A two tailed grading system for VIN seems already to work in daily practice. (J Clin Pathol 1999;52:820-824) Keywords: kappa test; MIB 1; vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia Over 80% of patients with vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia (VIN) grade 3 present with multifocal disease. At microscopy, nearly 40% of these assumed multifocal lesions do not show VIN 3, but show VIN 2, VIN 1, or even histologically normal squamous epithelium. The advised international standard treatment for VIN 3 is surgical excision of all visible lesions, to exclude the presence of an occult invasive squamous cell carcinoma.2 However, a conservative approach in multifocal VIN 3, without histologically proven microinvasion, is also safe and eVective.1 In this approach, invasive disease is excluded by taking multiple biopsies and the involved skin causing pain and pruritus is removed using cold knife surgery or laser vaporisation without aiming at radical removal.1 If one chooses to excise all visible lesions, it is therefore important to know which lesions do show VIN 3 and which do not. In this way one can leave as much vulvar skin as possible, avoiding psychological and sexual side eVects from extensive surgery. It is not known how pathologists diVer in their interpretation of VIN. However, they do diVer in their interpretation of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN). Measurement of cell proliferation may provide useful information on diagnosis and tumour prognosis. The Ki-67 monoclonal antibody is currently used in evaluating cellular proliferation rates of malignant tumours.5 A formalin resistant epitope of Ki-67 cell proliferation associated antigen is immunohistochemically detected by the MIB 1 monoclonal antibody.6 This has been proven to be the best proliferation marker fo...