Breast Epithelial Lesions

A Guide to their Differential Diagnosis

Praise for Breast Epithelial Lesions

From: Human Pathology. 34(3):297, March 2003.

"The diagnosis of breast epithelial lesions is a challenging task for surgical pathologists, both experienced and inexperienced alike. The recent publication of this CD-ROM is a welcome addition to the diagnostic armamentarium of pathologists. This electronic atlas guides the reader through the differential diagnosis of breast epithelial proliferative lesions. The focus is on providing the user with examples of all diagnostic categories, along with concise text descriptions of these entities and useful tables. Topics reviewed include ductal and lobular hyperplasias, atypical hyperplasias and variants, papillary proliferations, and ductal and lobular carcinomas in situ. Interestingly, the CD-ROM includes specific chapters to breast lesions with apocrine differentiation and "flat lesions" that are always difficult to diagnose. A separate chapter includes all of the slides, allowing the reader to easily review the images with the corresponding diagnoses.

This CD-ROM contains hundreds of high-quality images that illustrate the diagnostic features of ductal and lobular lesions and the pitfalls in their diagnosis. The user can choose to follow a structured review of each topic or can go directly to view images of multiple examples of a single entity. The images can be viewed in a "virtual microscopy" mode with 3 levels of magnification. Other useful features include a section of frequently asked questions and a self-assessment test.

I highly recommend this affordable CD-ROM for practicing surgical pathologists and pathology residents."

Reviewed by: Federico Monzon, MD, Division of Molecular Diagnostics, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

From: Modern Pathology. 16(5):423, May 2003.

"Breast Epithelial Lesions is an interactive CD that would probably be more descriptively titled "Breast Intraepithelial Lesions," as it covers atypical and non-atypical ductal hyperplasia, ductal carcinoma in situ, lobular hyperplasia, and lobular carcinoma in situ. There is also a chapter on the differential diagnosis of papillary proliferations. The chapters are short and concise with many nice color pictures to illustrate key points. The photos/"slides" are linked through highlighted key words in the text and are interactive I that you can scan the "slide" and move from low to mid to high power if you choose. There are also chapters on pitfalls and frequently asked questions and a five question self-assessment test at the end. Short comings include a limited search function, references are no specifically cited, and the CD does not run on the most recent operating systems (Mac OS X and Windows XP). [Note, the current version does run on these operating systems.] Nevertheless, the CD is very easy to use and is easily reviewed in its entirety in 2 to 3 hours. It makes a good, quick review of breast intraepithelial proliferations for practicing pathologists and is an excellent teaching tool for pathology residents."

Reviewed by: Cheryl B. Hill & I-Tien Yeh, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Texas.