Validation of Tumor Morphology in Sections Developed Using Tissue Microarray Technology in Astrocytomas and Oligodendrogliomas

Background: In the era of technological advancement, tissue microarray technology (TMA) plays a promising role in supplementing high-throughput molecular analytical studies. Fewer studies in the field of tumor pathology in brain biopsies demand for more analysis using this technique. Aims/ Objectives: The main objective of this study is to validate whether the tumor morphology is conserved in TMA slides in comparison with the conventional H&E slides. Materials and Methods: We analyzed 40 cases of malignant glial tumors (astrocytoma/ oligodendroglioma) using this technology where TMA blocks were constructed using 40 conventionally constructed formalin-fixed paraffin embedded blocks. H&E staining was carried out for all the TMA slides. Results: Out of the 40 cases analyzed, 36 cases (90%) showed positive for tumor. The other 4 cases (10%) showed no evidence of tumor. Out of 36 cases, 31 cases (86.1%) matched the diagnosis done with both the methods. Five cases (13.8%) showed non-concordant diagnosis when compared with the diagnosis given based on conventional H&E slides. Conclusion: Tissue microarray technology is definitely a promising tool which can be used for further molecular analysis thereby reducing the costs of reagents. Tumor morphology is conserved on TMA slides which are representative of the original blocks and slides constructed using conventional method. This technique can be useful in the cases in which the tissue is limited and if further molecular analysis is required on such tissues

A Comparison between Liquid-Based Cytology (LBC) and Cytospin Cytopreparatory Techniques in Urine Cytology

Abstract Introduction: The simplest and non-invasive procedure for screening tumors of the bladder is assessing urine cytology as it shows high sensitivity for detecting higher grade urothelial lesions. Liquid based cytology (LBC), being a newer technique may be promising in assessing these lesions over conventional cytospin technique. Aim: In the present study, we have assessed and compared the utility of LBC and cytospin preparations in urine cytology. Methods: This study was carried out for a period of one year (June 2014-April 2015) in the Department of Pathology, JIPMER. We have analyzed 150 samples received in the cytology laboratory, which included hemorrhagic, turbid as well as, clear urine samples. Each sample, was processed for both conventional cytospin (CCS) and SurePath LBC techniques. The parameters analyzed were cellularity, cell distribution, cytomorphology, smear background and staining quality. Kappa statistics was used to study the parameters with a p value of <0.05 being taken as ‘significant’. Results: Amongst the parameters studied, cellularity and smear background showed good agreement between LBC and CCS techniques with a kappa value of 0.451 and 0.570 respectively, whereas cell distribution and staining quality showed poor agreement between both methods with a kappa value of 0.044 and 0.008 respectively. With regard to cytomorphology, cytospin method showed better cytomorphologic details even in smaller cells which were darkly stained by LBC method. Conclusion: Liquid based cytology provided an excellent distribution of cells with a cleaner background, while the nuclear morphology is better appreciable with the conventional cytospin technique. There was no significant difference between the two techniques with respect to cellularity and smear background. Therefore, in our experience, the conventional cytospin technique is a better method for routine cytological examination of urine samples than the LBC techniques

Surgical Interventions in Ocular Diseases

THE COLORFUL WORLD WE SEE IS THE RESULT OF THE BEAUTIFUL CREATION OF THE HUMAN BODY – THE HUMAN EYE. Eye surgery has advanced swiftly over the last 25 years. The development of new technology, tools, and techniques has turned corrective eye surgery into a common procedure

Interactive Object Detection

The success of state-of-the-art object detection methods depend heavily on the availability of a large amount of annotated image data. The raw image data available from various sources are abundant but non-annotated. Annotating image data is often costly, time-consuming or needs expert help. In this work, a new paradigm of learning called Active Learning is explored which uses user interaction to obtain annotations for a subset of the dataset. The goal of active learning is to achieve superior object detection performance with images that are annotated on demand. To realize active learning method, the trade-off between the effort to annotate (annotation cost) unlabeled data and the performance of object detection model is minimised. Random Forests based method called Hough Forest is chosen as the object detection model and the annotation cost is calculated as the predicted false positive and false negative rate. The framework is successfully evaluated on two Computer Vision benchmark and two Carl Zeiss custom datasets. Also, an evaluation of RGB, HoG and Deep features for the task is presented. Experimental results show that using Deep features with Hough Forest achieves the maximum performance. By employing Active Learning, it is demonstrated that performance comparable to the fully supervised setting can be achieved by annotating just 2.5% of the images. To this end, an annotation tool is developed for user interaction during Active Learning

Persistent unilateral nictitating membrane in a 9-year-old girl: A rare case report

We report a case of persisting nictitating membrane in a 9-year-old girl presenting to us with the complaints of fleshy mass in the medial part of the left eye since birth, which was nonprogressive. On examination, her left eye was amblyopic with a vision of 20/500. The membrane was continuous with the medial canthus and was spread in a horizontal fashion, covering the underlying bulbar conjunctiva and one-third of the cornea. The globe however moved freely underneath the membrane, indicating no attachment between the globe and overlying membrane. The patient underwent simple excision of the nictitating membrane with good outcome

Tissue Microarray TechnologyA Brief Review

In this era of modern revolutionisation in the field of medical laboratory technology, everyone is aiming at taking the innovations from laboratory to bed side. One such technique that is most relevant to the pathologic community is Tissue Microarray (TMA) technology. This is becoming quite popular amongst all the members of this family, right from laboratory scientists to clinicians and residents to technologists. The reason for this technique to gain popularity is attributed to its cost effectiveness and time saving protocols. Though, every technique is accompanied by disadvantages, the benefits out number them. This technique is very versatile as many downstream molecular assays such as immunohistochemistry, cytogenetic studies, Fluorescent In situ-Hybridisation (FISH) etc., can be carried out on a single slide with multiple numbers of samples. It is a very practical approach that aids effectively to identify novel biomarkers in cancer diagnostics and therapeutics. It helps in assessing the molecular markers on a large scale very quickly. Also, the quality assurance protocols in pathological laboratory has exploited TMA to a great extent. However, the application of TMA technology is beyond oncology. This review shall focus on the different aspects of this technology such as construction of TMA, instrumentation, types, advantages and disadvantages and utilisation of the technique in various disease conditions