Proceedings of the 46th Professor Janez Plečnik Memorial Meeting with the International Symposium »Advances in Oral Diseases«. Editors: Nina Zidar in Nina Gale. A foreword was written by Professor Emeritus of Pathology Gregor Mikuž, Innsbruck. He outlined an outstanding importance of presentation of a comprehensive review of advances in oral pathology for additional education of pathologists, cytologists , other biomedical experts, and clinicians as well as medical and dental students. The proceedings includes contibutions of 15 invited lecturers - pathologist, cytologists and clinicians from the United States, The Netherlands, UK, Italy, Czech Repubic and Slovenia and was divided into 6 modules: 1. Inflammatory, infectious and immune-mediated diseases; 2. Precursor lesions and malignant epithelial tumors; 3. Diagnostic procedures and management of oral cancer; 4. Tooth and jaw development, developmental defects, odontogenic cysts and tumors; 5. Fibro-osseous lesions, benign and malignant bone tumors of the jaws; 6. Salivary gland and soft tissue tumors. All contributions include the main findings and advances in diagnostics and treatment of the presented lesions and diseases. Slide seminar includes 6 rare tumors and diseases of the oral cavity, prepared by five pathologists from Austria, Czech Repubic, Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia. At the end, the Proceesings incudes 18 interesting cases, which were presented in poster session by the Slovenian and Croatian pathologists, cytologists and clinicians.
C.01 Editorial board of a foreign/international collection of papers/book
COBISS.SI-ID: 282409216Human paillomavirus (HPV)-related oropahryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) has been recently identified as a special subset of the head and neck (HN)SCC, with important particularities in epidemiology, pathogenesis, clinical data, morphology, molecular genetics, treatment and prognosis. Epidemiology: incidence of HPV related OP SCC varies worldwide considerably, from 40-80% OP SCC in the USA, whereas the proportion in Europe varies from about 90% in Sweden to less than 20% in Southern Europe. HPV-related SCC is much less frequent in other HN regions. The sinonasal tract is probably another “hot spot” (20%), in contrast, the true incidence of HPV-related SCC of the oral cavity, larynx and hypopharynx is only about 5%. Pathogenesis. The viral status is decisive for its biological and clinical relevance. Only integrated and transcriptionally active HPV has biological relevance for cancer development. Clinical aspects: the pathways of HPV transmission in the HN include oral-genital contacts, and vertical transmission of HPV from an infected mother to a newborn child. HPV positive. Patients are usually younge males in comparison with patients with HPV negative OPSCC. Microscopy: epithelia of tonsillar crypts is a site of origin, there is no transitional zones of precursor lesions, basaloid appearance of cells is conspicuous, there is no desmoplastic stromal reaction; lymph node metastases characteristically show cystic degeneration. Methods of HPV detection: there is still no widely accepted method for detection of the transcriptionally active high- risk HPV. p16 overexpression (70%) can be considered to be a surrogate marker of HPV infection in OP SCC. RNA in situ hybridization (ISH) seems to have been introduced as a golden standard for identifying HPV-related SCC. Prognosis: patients with HPV positive OPSCC have considerably better progosis in comparison with HPV negative OPSCC patients.
B.04 Guest lecture
COBISS.SI-ID: 32171737Special urogenital pathology issue of Analytical and quantitative cytology and histology is based on presentations, held at the 44th Professor Janez Plečnik Memorial meeting with the title »Update in Uropathology«, held in Ljubljana Slovenia in December 2013. A high quality of program stimulated the Editorial board to invite the president of the scientific committee Professor Metka Volavšek to be the guest editor of this special issue which offers an excellent overview of current advances in the field of morphology and biomarkers of the genitourinary cancers.
C.03 Guest-associated editor
COBISS.SI-ID: 32527065Virchows Archiv, published by Springer, is official journal of the European Society of Pathology. Articles concerned with surgical pathology, experimental morphology, ultrastructural research, immunocytochemical analysis, and molecular biology arepublished. The journal is indexed by many international indexes, among them PubMed and Science Citation Index. The journal Impact Factor is 2.65.
C.04 Editorial board of an international magazine
At the »2nd International Renal Pathology Conference« in the famous university city of Tsukuba Dušan Ferluga, recognized by his research achievements, was among the internationally recognized invited speakers from many countries throughout the world. Institute of Pathology in Ljubljana has been is among limited number of centers in the world with the competent experts and advanced complete technology for diagnosing and studying a heterogeneous group of hereditary kidney diseases caused by genetic impairment of the collagen IV. The asymptomatic carrier state and thin basement membrane nephropathy including all its variabilities were presented in the lecture as one side of a variegated disease spectrum. The full phenotypic heterogeneity of the Alport syndrome on the other side of a spectrum was presented as caused by more than 700 up-to now published mutations of the gene COL4A5 and significantly more rarely by mutations of the COL4A3 or COL4A4 genes. The heterogeneity of clinical and histopathological expressions of the Alport syndrome depend on the type of mutations, which are mostly private, family specific. Our experiences with COL4A5 gene mutations on the X chromosome in female patients with a full heterogeneity of phenotypic expression were emphasized and explained as a consequence of random inactivation of one of the paired X chromosomes in the cells. Wide interest at the Conference achieved the presentation of the missense COL4A5 mutation G624D; G)A2073 in 6 families in Slovenia and later published as confirmed in another 6 families in Greece. Unusual was the heterogeneity of phenotypic expression of this mutation between families as well as not only among female but also male members of a single family which suggests not yet discovered potential modifying genes as well as epigenetic and non-genetic factors.
B.04 Guest lecture
COBISS.SI-ID: 32536537