1/2. hiv-associated primary cervical non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and two other cases of primary pelvic non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.BACKGROUND: Although there have been few case series of primary pelvic non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) reported over the past two decades, no patient with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)-related primary pelvic NHL has been reported. CASE: We report a human immunodeficiency virus (hiv)-infected patient with primary cervical NHL. After surgical biopsy, she received standard NHL combination chemotherapy plus standard hiv highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), and remains disease free 38 months since therapy. We also report two other cases of primary pelvic NHL. CONCLUSIONS: Primary pelvic NHL is rare, with clinical presentation similar to other common gynecologic malignancies. It is treated with combination chemotherapy and pelvic radiotherapy, and generally has good prognosis. Adding HAART to other standard therapies for patients with AIDS-related pelvic lymphoma may improve the prognosis of this category of patients.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = gynecologic (Clic here for more details about this article) |
2/2. Evaluation of the 10% rescreen of negative gynecologic smears as a quality assurance measure.The CLIA '88 regulations require the laboratory to review at least 10% of the gynecologic cases interpreted as negative that are examined by each cytotechnologist. The review must include negative cases selected at random and from patients identified as a high risk group. To evaluate the validity of this regulation, we reviewed the results of the 10% rescreen over a 24-mo period. The rescreening by pathologists detected epithelial abnormalities in 4/2,124 negative cases (0.18%). Subsequently, biopsy-proven squamous intraepithelial lesions were found in all four cases. Three different cytotechnologists were responsible for the four false-negative interpretations. Our results show that 10% rescreen of negative smears may detect a few false-negative cases. However, it is a time-consuming and inefficient mean to evaluate the performance of cytotechnologists. quality control in gynecologic cytopathology is essential, but it is equally important that laboratories concentrate their resources and energy on methods proven to be effective.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 6keywords = gynecologic (Clic here for more details about this article) |