Histopathologic characteristics of the transitional stage of measles-associated appendicitis: case report and review of the literature.

From 2006 to 2009, Switzerland experienced the highest measles incidence rate in Central and Western Europe. This increased occurrence of measles cases is mainly due to insufficient vaccination of the Swiss population over a period of many years. Acute appendicitis is a rare complication of measles infection. To date, 25 cases of measles-associated appendicitis have been documented in the English literature. Sixteen (64.0%) of the 25 patients had developed appendicitis in the prodromal stage of measles before skin rash appeared. This article describes the unusual histopathologic findings of measles-associated appendicitis in a 19-year-old non-measles-vaccinated man in the transitional phase from prodromal to full-blown disease and provides a comprehensive review of the literature.

Improved detection of bladder carcinoma cells in voided urine by standardized microsatellite analysis.

Successful treatment of bladder cancer depends largely on early diagnosis of primary and recurrent disease. Sensitive, specific and noninvasive procedures for detection are especially needed for grade 1 and 2 bladder tumors, because of the relatively low sensitivity of cytology. Here we introduce a novel strategy to improve the sensitivity and reliability of microsatellite analyses by employing marker-specific threshold values for loss-of-heterozygosity (LOH) at 10 loci. These individual cut-offs were experimentally determined with 35 normal control tissues and subsequently validated in a retrospective study with bladder cancer biopsies from 86 patients. In a prospective analysis of voided urines samples and matched blood probes from 91 patients, LOH-analysis, UroVysion FISH and conventional urine cytology were compared with histological findings of consecutive transurethral biopsies. Whereas all samples could be analyzed by our LOH assay, only 56 samples were suitable for all 3 analyses. The highest sensitivity was obtained with our LOH-assay/cytology approach (G1-2: 72%; G3: 96%) being only surpassed by a combination of all 3 techniques (G1-2: 83%; G3: 100%). Since over 93% of the patients with recurrent disease were identified by LOH/cytology-analyses of their voided urine samples, a monitoring scheme alternating cystoscopy with LOH/cytology-examination could now be envisioned to reduce invasive interventions and consequently improve follow-up compliance, especially in patients with low grade tumors.