Friday, July 20, 2018

A ganglion of neuropathologists spontaneously coalesces at a this week's Association of Pathology Chairs meeting

Neuropathologists serve many roles aside from signing out surgical specimens and performing brain autopsies. That fact was in full display at this week's Association of Pathology Chairs meeting where, at a reception on Monday, a group of neuropathologists found themselves standing together at an afternoon reception. (Perhaps this coalescence was not so much by chance as it occurred directly adjacent to the bar.) It was nice to see old friends.

Left to right: Drs. Douglas Miller, Kymberly Gyure, Jennifer Baccon, Eyas Hattab, and Brian Moore

Monday, July 16, 2018

What is the nodulus?

The lobule of the cerebellar vermis that, together with the flocculus of each hemisphere, forms the flocculonodular lobe.




Friday, July 13, 2018

Hyperbrain: a great resource for learning neuroanatomy

HyperBrain is an online tutorial for human neuroanatomy from the University of Utah.  HyperBrain includes thousand of images and hundreds of linked illustrated glossary terms, as well as movies, quizzes and interactive animations.

Thursday, July 12, 2018

Best Post of May 2018: Moving beyond histologic grading of IDH-wildtype diffuse astrocytic gliomas

The next in our "Best of the Month" series comes from May, 30, 2018:

Despite the fact that the most recent update of the World Health Organization (WHO) classification of central nervous system tumors was published only two years ago, the data is already showing that we are moving beyond that classification system when if comes to IDH-wildtype diffuse astrocytomas. The concept of an "integrated diagnosis" in the setting of IDH-wildtype histologic grade II and III tumors has already been eclipsed in the literature by the primacy of the genetic signature over histologic appearance in predicting outcome. In the near future, diffuse IDH-wildtype astrocytic gliomas with (1) combined whole chromosome gain of 7 and loss of 10, and/or (2) EGFR amplification will be designated as equivalent to WHO grade IV gliomas. Histologic grades for such tumors will be stricken from the top diagnostic line so as to avoid unfounded reassurance that these tumors will behave in any way other than very aggressively.

Monday, July 9, 2018

Friday, July 6, 2018

Malignant astroblastoma in a 23-year-old female


Headaches prompted imaging which showed a large right parieto-occipital tumor. Astroblastic pseudorossettes are prominent, with cells that are fairly monotonous. GFAP was only focally positive, not unusual for this diagnosis. Mitotic rate ranged up to 8 per 10 HPF, with a MIB1 cell cycling index reaching 40%.

Thursday, July 5, 2018

More on Rosenthal

Thanks to Dr. Gregg B. Wells from Texas A&M University for directing me to an article authored by Dr. Hans Goebel of Charite-Universitätsmedizin in Berlin regarding the life and accomplishments of neuropathologist Werner Rosenthal (1870-1942). Dr. Wells was prompted to write to me by my recent post entitled "Who was Rosenthal?". For those who are interested in Dr. Rosethal's travails as a Jew in Nazi Germany forced into exile in India, I encourage you to read Dr. Goebel's open-access article.

Dr. Werner Rosenthal with his wife and daughter in 1917.
(Taken from Dr. Goebel's article in Clinical Neuropathology)

Dr. Diamandis develops network to help pathologists interface with AI computational scientists

A neuropathology colleague in Toronto (Dr. Phedias Diamandis) is developing some amazing AI-based tools for pathology and academia. He hel...