p53 staining in Barrett's biopsies holds up in routine practice

The edition in brief

Across 1,146 consecutive Barrett's oesophagus consultation cases reviewed by the Dutch Esophageal Pathology Panel, p53 immunohistochemistry showed substantial agreement among 13 expert pathologists (kappa 0.65) and moderate-to-substantial agreement with referring hospitals (kappa 0.61), with a quarter of referring-centre p53 calls revised. Aberrant p53 moved 14% of non-dysplastic biopsies up a category, and among indefinite-for-dysplasia biopsies, 37% were reclassified as low-grade dysplasia and 17% as non-dysplastic. A Cochrane review of five studies (3,291 people) found the one near point-of-care TB nucleic acid test meeting WHO's class definition had 85% sensitivity and 98% specificity against culture, lower than Xpert Ultra in sensitivity and well above smear microscopy, with weaker performance in HIV and smear-negative disease. A meta-analysis of 35 studies tabulated SOX10 positivity across salivary gland tumours — strongly positive in pleomorphic adenoma, adenoid cystic, acinic cell and polymorphous adenocarcinoma, largely negative in Warthin's, oncocytoma and salivary duct carcinoma — and found one antibody clone stained fewer tumours. In 58 borderline or malignant phyllodes tumours, high stromal mitoses and malignant heterologous elements predicted metastasis, while the 2023 Refined Criteria upgraded half of borderline tumours without better prognostic separation.