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A heavy admixture of blood in cervical smears can be problematic for the screener, as the presence of blood can influence the staining quality of the cancer cell nuclei. However, it might also be a blessing in disguise. A retrospective study of 40 clinically important smears, 34 originally signed out as negative for squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix and 6 smears as unsatisfactory, was carried out in comparison with 100 smears from healthy women. Sample parameters were analyzed by macroscopy and neural network scanning. Differences between the two study groups were measured by Pearson's chi(2) test. Of the 40 study cases, one case featured insufficient material, while 16 cases (40%) could confidently be classified as malignant or negative for malignancy. The most important macroscopic parameter of the smears was an admixture of blood. This background feature was also highlighted by the NNS system. Angiogenesis was visualized by the expression of CD34 in many sampled capillary fragments included in the smears. In conclusion, blood in cervical smears may have clinical and diagnostic significance. The rate of "failed smears" in routine cervical screening might thus by CD34 be considerably decreased., (Copyright 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc.)

The first xenograft line of small cell undifferentiated carcinoma of the prostate (UCRU-PR-2) has been established and characterized. The donor tumor and the xenograft share the common morphological and ultrastructural features of small cell undifferentiated carcinoma (including neurosecretory granules) but also elaborate epithelial membrane antigen and carcinoembryonic antigen, in addition to neurone-specific enolase. The line expresses a diploid DNA complement. Androgen and estrogen receptors are not expressed, although prostatic acid phosphatase is present in sera from tumor-bearing mice in low levels. From these studies, we postulate a possible common stem cell origin for adenocarcinoma and small cell undifferentiated carcinoma of the prostate; further studies of a cell line derived from this tumor may clarify the issue.