Human Pathology (2013) 44, 449
www.elsevier.com/locate/humpath
Correspondence
Porocarcinoma: an exceedingly rare tumor or a tumor eclipse phenomenon?—Reply To the Editor: At the outset, we thank the author for the in-depth study of our article [1] and apologize for any entirely unintentional discrepancies. We would, however, like to emphasize that the premise of the study was in differentiating porocarcinoma from squamous cell carcinoma and the utility of immunohistochemical stains as a histopathologic adjunct in the differentiation of these 2 entities—it was never meant to be an epidemiological study. Having said that, the authors (M. M. and M. H.) stand by their original contention that the frequency of porocarcinoma is not as high as that encountered by Dr Urso based on their more than 20 years of combined experience of solely practicing dermatopathology in the United States. On a minor note, may we point out that Robson et al [2] refer to the entity in question as “eccrine porocarcinoma or EP” throughout the article other than when detailing the characteristics of the “tumor”!
0046-8177/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Meera Mahalingam MD, PhD, FRCPath Dermatopathology Section, Department of Dermatology Boston University School of Medicine, Boston MA 01228, USA E-mail address:
[email protected] Mai P. Hoang MD Department of Pathology, Massachusetts General Hospital Boston, MA 02114, USA E-mail address:
[email protected] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.humpath.2012.11.010
References [1] Mahalingam M, Richards JE, Selim MA, Muzikansky A, Hoang MP. An immunohistochemical comparison of cytokeratin 7, cytokeratin 15, cytokeratin 19, CAM 5.2, carcinoembryonic antigen, and nestin in differentiating porocarcinoma from squamous cell carcinoma. HUM PATHOL 2012;43:1265-72. [2] Robson A, Greene J, Ansari N, et al. Eccrine porocarcinoma (malignant eccrine poroma): a clinicopathologic study of 69 cases. Am J Surg Pathol 2001;25:710-20.
