Identity testing in cervical carcinoma in case of suspected mix-up

The histopathologic diagnosis is the cornerstone of modern oncology. But mi x-ups of specimens can occur at any stage. The resection of a 1.2 cm polypo id cervical mass in a 25-year-old woman showed a poorly differentiated aden ocarcinoma prospectively staged as T1b1 (International Federation of Gyneco logy and Obstetrics IB1). Even after complete embedding and serial sectioni ng of the whole cervix of the hysterectomy specimen after radical hysterect omy, only adenocarcinoma in situ, but no invasive tumor, was seen. To exclu de a mix-up of the specimens, identity testing of the paraffin-embedded mat erial was performed by microsatellite analysis. For both materials, we esta blished identical results after testing the microsatellite loci HumTH01, Hu mVWA, HumFGA, HumACTBP2, HumF13B, and HumD8S1132. The resulting probability of identity came to 99.9999%, excluding a mix-up of the specimens. Archiva l paraffin-embedded specimens can be used to establish identity and can pre vent the wrong patient from having major surgery.