BACKGROUND The International Prognostic Index (IPI) is used to determine prognosis in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). One of the determinants of IPI is the stage of disease with bone marrow involvement being classified as stage IV. For the IPI, involvement on bone marrow is traditionally defined on the basis of histology with ancillary investigations used only in difficult cases to aid h...

Cell maturation anomalies in bone marrow samples have long been recognized by the patient scrutiny of morphologists, have led to detailed descriptions of possible abnormalities and later to clinically relevant classifications of myelodysplasia (MDS). That the diagnosis and fine description of MDS belong to the realm of morphologists has long been considered a prerogative although, since the ear...

Microglia, once assimilated to peripheral macrophages, in gliomas has long been discussed and currently it is hypothesized to play a pro-tumor role in tumor progression. Uncertain between M1 and M2 polarization, it exchanges signals with glioma cells to create an immunosuppressive microenvironment and stimulates cell proliferation and migration. Four antibodies are currently used for microglia/...

Background: Although many lines of evidence suggest an autoimmune etiology, the pathophysiology of opsoclonus–myoclonus syndrome (OMS) remains poorly understood and no immunologic abnormalities have correlated with neurologic severity. Conventional immunotherapies often do not prevent relapse or permanent sequelae. Objective: To test the cellular immune hypothesis of OMS in a cross-sectional st...

background: patients with b-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (b-cll) have hetero-geneous clinical courses, thus several biological parameters need to be added to the cur-rent clinical staging systems to predict disease outcome. recent immunophenotypic stud-ies performed mainly in western populations have demonstrated the prognostic value of cd38 and zap-70 expression in b-cll. objectives: to i...

BACKGROUND Flow cytometry is a method that enables the automated quantification of a set of parameters for a large number of cells or cell-like particles. It is also possible to analyze solid tissues after reduction to a single cell suspension. One of the applications of fl ow cytometry is immunophenotyping. AIM The authors try to introduce the basic physical and biological principles of fl o...

OBJECTIVES We report a case of hairy cell leukemia (HCL) initially misdiagnosed as plasma cell dyscrasia due to various clinical, morphological and immunophenotypic confounders. METHODS AND RESULTS In a patient diagnosed of marrow plasmacytosis and serum monoclonal protein elsewhere and referred to our hospital, morphological evaluation of bone marrow aspirate smears and trephine biopsy, immu...