While localised prostate cancer can be cured by local treatment, ‘high-risk’ often progresses to castration resistant disease and remains incurable with a dismal prognosis. In recent years, technical advances development of novel methodologies have largely contributed better understanding underlying molecular mechanisms that promote tumour growth progression. Consecutively, therapeutic strategi...

"Molecular pathology" can be broadly defined as the use of genetic data, in addition to the standard pathological parameters, to optimise diagnosis and to indicate treatment and prognosis. The benefit to be gained from the exploitation of molecular techniques to provide additional information to aid patient management is potentially vast. Currently, molecular pathology is rarely used in clinica...

The cognitive deficits in patients with HIV profoundly affect the quality of life of people living with this disease and have often been linked to the neuro-inflammatory condition known as HIV encephalitis (HIVE). With the advent of more effective anti-retroviral therapies, HIVE has shifted from a sub-acute to a chronic condition. The neurodegenerative process in patients with HIVE is character...

Craniopharyngiomas are rare epithelial tumours arising along the path of the craniopharyngeal duct. Two major histological subtypes have been recognised, the papillary and the adamantinomatous. Craniopharyngiomas remain challenging tumours to manage and are associated with significant morbidities and mortality. Recent advances in the molecular pathology of these neoplasms have identified BRAF m...

Featured Article: Tissue microarrays for highthroughput molecular profiling of tumor specimens. Kononen J, Bubendorf L, Kallioniemi A, Bärlund M, Schraml P, Leighton S, Torhorst J, Mihatsch MJ, Sauter G, Kallioniemi OP. Nat Med. 1998;4:844 –7. Tissue specimens are essential for biomedical and clinical research. In situ detection of DNA, RNA, and protein targets in tissues provides a powerful me...

Four different genetic abnormalities may occur in endometrioid adenocarcinomas of the endometrium (mircosatellite instability and mutations in the PTEN, k-RAS and beta-catenin genes), whereas nonendometrioid carcinomas of the endometrium often have p53 mutations and loss of heterozygosity on several chromosomes. Occasionally, a nonendometrioid carcinoma may develop as a result of dedifferentiat...

Cryptorchidism is the most common cause of non-obstructive azoospermia in man. In contrast to the general belief that temperature-dependent effects on the undescended gonad damage cryptorchid testes before sexual maturation is complete, molecular pathology strongly supports the theory that impaired mini-puberty is responsible for azoospermia and infertility in cryptorchidism. Molecular biologic...