REPORT OF THE 100th ANNUAL MEETING OF
THE UNITED STATES AND CANADIAN ACADEMY OF PATHOLOGY
February 26 - March 4, 2011 - San Antonio, Texas




The 100th annual meeting of the USCAP was held in San Antonio, Texas and was by all accounts a resounding success. 4,225 total physician-pathologists were in attendance—"Welcome Home!" The General Registration of the Annual Meeting was the second highest in the history of USCAP attendance-4,225 (Two years ago in Boston being the highest—4,262). These attendance figures continue to make the Annual Meeting of the Academy the largest gathering, by far, of physician-pathologists in the world. Indeed, for the past ten years we have regularly had 3,000-to over 4,200 physician-pathologists or more in attendance. In the last 3 years we've had over 4,000 physician-pathologists in attendance! 880 of the registrants/attendees at the San Antonio meeting were from international countries outside of the US and Canada. The countries (and the number of international visitors from each country) included:

Japan (87), Brazil and also Mexico each (66), Spain (57), Italy (52), United Kingdom (51), Australia (48), Germany (42), S. Korea (40), Argentina (38), France (29 ), Netherlands (23), Switzerland (22 ), Turkey (22 ) , Taiwan (19), Ireland (18), Colombia (16), Portugal (15), Chile (12), and all the other countries 1-10 friends. Thus, 880 international visitors from 61 countries outside of the USA and Canada were in attendance (21 % of our total registrants). Pathologists from all 50 states of the US and 9 Canadian provinces were in attendance.

Of the registrants, 2,147 were Regular, Sustaining or Emeritus members and 928 were Junior Members . There were 654 pathologists in practice who were not members and 263 residents/fellows who were not members (yet). Thus, including the Residents and other students, there were a total of 1,191 residents/fellows at our meeting. Each of the last several years we have had a thousand plus residents/fellows/students attend our Annual Meetings. The percentage of house staff attending the meeting who are members of the Academy are for the past nine years - 41% , 69%, 67%, 66%, 76%, 84%, 88%, 83%, 85%, 85% respectively. This probably relates to the effective recruitment we have had of pathology house staff/fellows/pathologists-in-training in the last 10 years. In July 1999 we had 520 Junior Members; in the following ten-eleven years we recruited over 6,800 additional Junior Members (many of which have now become Regular Members). Our present "steady state" of Junior Members is over 2,000. Our total USCAP Membership is over 10,600 physician-pathologists.

Dr. Stuart Schnitt served a distinguished and quite active term as President of the USCAP. He turned over the gavel and the Presidency to Dr. Greg Fuller as the new President of the Academy. 2,678 scientific abstracts were submitted for evaluation; this was the second most in our history from Boston's all time record two years ago (2762). The quality of the submitted abstracts was very high. A record total of 1,960 were accepted after "blind" peer review (73%). This is the greatest number of on-site scientific abstracts in anatomic and diagnostic molecular pathology ever presented in history, anywhere, by anyone, at any time! The review is conducted by at least 4 individuals from the Academy (4 "experts" in the area). The percentage of acceptance is generally dependent upon the space available at the hotel (which is usually booked 5-6-7 years in advance of the meeting). We try to accommodate as many quality poster sessions as space allows. Abstracts were submitted from throughout the world (from approximately 40 countries and over 450 academic medical centers and institutions). This was the ninth year for the USCAP to have electronic submission of our scientific abstracts (in conjunction with Marathon, Inc). These scientific abstracts are now online searchable by topic, disease, word, technique, author, institution, etc. ( www.uscap.org ). The USCAP website: www.uscap.org consistently has the last three years of scientific abstracts (over 5,000) which are now searchable by topic, disease, author, etc. for the last 3 years. Of the total of REGULAR abstracts (non-Stowell-Orbison) 2,324 were submitted. The Stowell-Orbison Pathologists-in-Training abstract data is noted in the next paragraph. Of the TOTAL (REGULAR PLUS STOWELL-ORBISON) abstracts submitted 1,960 were accepted with 279 being platforms and 1681 (the largest in history) being posters. As noted before, 1,191 pathologists-in-training attended the various portions of the meeting. 58 plus% of submitted scientific abstracts had a first author who is a pathologist-in-training (compared to 38%, 43%, 53%, 58% the last four years). (This does not count the house staff/fellows that are second, third, etc. authors). 354 Stowell-Orbison Abstracts were submitted by junior pathologists and of these 249 were accepted (70%). Once again, the "scores" for the accepted Stowell-Orbisons were actually higher than the scores for the "regular" abstracts accepted for presentation (ie. Non-Stowell-Orbison). There were four co-equal, Stowell-Orbison Awards presented and four co-equal Certificates of Merit.

The four co-equal recipients, in no specific order,
of the Stowell-Orbison Awards are:
Can Gene Expression Profiling Identify Primary melanomas that are Likely to metastasize to Lymph Nodes?
Stephen S. Koh ,
UCLA, Los Angeles, CA
Characterization of B-Cell Lymphoma Unclassifiable with Features Intermediate Between Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma and Burkitt's Lymphoma: A Ten Year Retrospective Review
Lori Edwards ,
McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada
i17q REPA/REPB Rearrangement in Medulloblastoma: A mMrker for Early Recurrence
Gabriel A Bien-Willner,
Washington University, St Louis, MO
Alternative lengthening of Telomeres in Human Carcinoma Subtypes
Christopher Heaphy ,
The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD




The four co-equal recipients of the Certificates of Merit are:
The Pathogenesis of Osteochondroma: Clues from Tracing Proteoglycans in Zebrafish Models and Human Cartilage
Carlos E. De Andrea ,
Leiden University Medical Center, Netherlands
The 8p11.2 Amplicon is Associated with Hormonal Treatment Resistance and a Worse Clinical Outcome: Validation by FISH, aCGH and Gene Expression Profiling
Alejandro A. Gru ,
Washington University School fo Medicine, St. Louis, MO
Molecular Detection of TOP2A Gene Amplification in Archival Fine needle Aspirates of Small Cell Lung Carcinoma
Nikoletta Sidiropoulos,
Fletcher Allen health Care/University of Vermont, Burlington, VT
Fibrotic Transformation of Polycythemia Vera & Essential Thrombocythemia is Biologically Indistinguishable from Primary Myelofibrosis
Nikhil A. Sangle ,
University of Utah & ARUP Laboratories, Salt Lake City, UT




The ADASP/USCAP Autopsy Award winning abstract was:
The Role of Notch Signaling Pathway in Human Fetal Pancreas and Pancreatic Cancer
Huankai Hu ,
University Hospital of Cleveland, Case Medical Center, OH




The ADASP/USCAP Surgical Pathology Award was:
A comparative Histopathological Evaluation Between Subgroups of Hashimoto's Thyroiditis
Yaqiong Li ,
Wakayama Medical University, Japan


617 registrants attended the Long Course entitled "Practical Solutions to Common Problems in Pulmonary Pathology" by Course Directors: Drs. Jeffrey Myers and Anna-Luise A. Katzenstein . This well-attended Long Course was well received. Early perusals of the critique form show that this course was very well done and very well-liked by the registrants. This Long Course includes a CD packed full of over six hundred images. This Long Course will be published in the next year in Modern Pathology.(Last year's Long Course is in Modern Pathology).

Sixty one half-day Short Courses were presented and very well attended (with a total registration of Short Courses taken being 4921 (tied for the second highest in history; last years was the record at 5186) -that is the number of courses attended times the number of attendees at these sessions; an overall average of about 76-80 pathologists/per Short Course offering). From 1999 to the present time, the Academy has had regularly over 4000 in total registration each year. Virtually all of our Short Courses have pre-meeting and post-meeting CD's and many have "Virtual Slides". All Short Courses this year had Self-Assessment Modules (SAM) available.

Six Special Courses were offered: one on "A Practical Guide to Molecular Testing in Cancer" (headed by Drs. Julia Bridge (Univ. Nebraska)was "sold out" attracting virtually a maximum room number of 454 registrants on Monday. This course has a CD in addition to the extensive syllabus. The ongoing Advanced Molecular Pathology course (headed by Dr. Frederic Barr, Univ. of Pennsylvania) on Tuesday attracted 283 registrants and included a CD in addition to the extensive syllabus (the third highest in history). A third new course in its second year entitled "Careers in Investigative Pathology" directed by Drs. Massimo Loda (Brigham & Women's/Dana Farber) and David Berman (Johns Hopkins) was entitled "Get Published". This course was totally filled with 143 attendees. In addition Dr. Sharon Weiss (Emory) gave a course entitled "Navigating the Academic waters: A Survival Course for Residents/Junior Faculty". It also was "sold out "with 108 attendees. The two other new Special Courses were Dr. Tarik Elsheikh's day -long Basic Principles of Cytology which had 457 registrants, and Dr. Jennifer Hunt's new course entitled Introduction to Molecular Pathology for the Practicing Pathologist which had 391 registrants. Thus the three Molecular Courses had over 1,100 attending pathologists.

Twenty - Six Companion Societies presented their educational endeavors on Saturday night and Sunday. The total number of registrants (registrants x courses) was 6,737, by far and away the second highest in our history (to Boston) (67% of all attendees attended at least one Companion Society). For the past eight years all of the Companion Societies and evening Specialty Conferences' handouts/syllabus have been placed on our website ( www.uscap.org ) after the Annual meeting. This year was our sixth year for the Companions and the Specialties to go "paperless". All of the Companion Society handouts were on our USCAP Website at least two weeks before the meeting, and the Specialty Sessions had their unknowns (i.e., Clinical history and unknown slides) up one month before the Annual meeting, with the answers (i.e., text, Powerpoints, references, answers, etc.) up the morning after that evening Specialty Conference.

The Nathan Kaufman Timely Topic Lecture was given by Dr. Guillermo J. Tearney of Harvard/MIT and entitled Endoscopic Microscopy: Bridging the Radiology-Pathology Divide. His lecture was elegant, timely, "almost futuristic" and very well received by the appreciative audience of over 2,200 pathologists. Dr. Elaine Jaffe gave the fifty-third Maude Abbot Lecture entitled: "The Microscope as a Tool for Disease Discovery". This elegant, and wonderful lecture was also attended by over 2,200 pathologists. Hers was truly an outstanding presentation. The Distinguished Pathologists Award was presented this year to an individual in recognition of his long-term, distinguished service in the development of the discipline of pathology and the USCAP: Dr. Stephen S. Sternberg, recognized by the Academy membership for his major and extensive contributions to pathology over the years. Please see the USCAP Website ( www.uscap.org ) for her bio-sketch.

The President's Award was presented this year to Dr. Fred Silva. His dedication and work for the Academy is way "above and beyond the call of duty". Please see the USCAP Website of the 2011 Annual Meeting for details about this outstanding and dedicated individual who have contributed so much to pathology world-wide.

The F.K. Mostofi Distinguished Service Award went to Dr. Sylvia Asa for her important, multiple, and extraordinary efforts and achievements to the Academy.

The Ramzi Cotran Young Investigator Award was presented to Dr. Shuji Ogino of the Brigham and Women's Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School for his major work in Molecular Pathological Epidemiology.

The Benjamin Castleman Award for the most outstanding paper in the field of human pathology was awarded to two individuals this year: Dr. Anthony Gill for his paper entitled "Immunohistochemistry for SDHB Divides Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors (GISTs) into 2 Distinct Types" in the American Journal of Surgical Pathology 2010: 34:636-644; and to Dr Jiaqi Shi for his paper in the International J. Of Cancer 2010: 126(2): 395-404 entitled "Increased expression of the heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein K in pancreatic cancer and its association with the mutant p53." The Awards were presented by Dr. David Louis, Chair of MGH/Boston. The F. Stephen Vogel Award (for the most outstanding paper published in an Academy journal by a pathologist-in-training ) went to Dr. Jose Gaal, in the Erasmus Medical Center, Netherlands for his paper entitled : SDHB Immunohistochemistry : A Useful Tool in the Diagnosis of Carney-Stratakis and Carney Triad Gastrointestinal Tumors in Modern Pathology 2010: 1-5. The USCAP in conjunction with Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital/Harvard announced the institution of the Harvey Goldman Master Teacher Award. The first awardees are Drs. Donald Antonioli and Henry Appelman. The 19 evening Specialty Conferences, which are organ-based, were held from 7:30-9:30 PM, which was a testimony to the continuing endurance of the meeting's registrants. All of the evening Specialty Conferences are online on the Academy's website. For the past six years the unknowns (i.e., clinical history and representative histologic images) are placed on our USCAP website several weeks before the annual meeting, and the answers, complete text, references, etc. are placed on our website the next morning after the Specialty Conference for all throughout the world to enjoy.

Additional activities of the Academy have concentrated on the partnership of our two academy journals with the most outstanding medical and science publishing group in the world--Nature Publishing Group. Many of the top scientific breakthroughs of the 20th Century were first reported in the journal - Nature (it is the world's foremost weekly scientific journal by impact factor). Nature Publishing Group (NPG) publishes over 60 high profile society-owned or affiliated journals and 7-8 of the top 20 in the world in impact factor. Both of our Academy's journals now offer 4 pages of free color per published article, rapid advance online publication available 6 weeks after manuscript acceptance, increased international exposure, electronic table of content alerts delivered directly to your inbox highlighting new content each month, online submission of manuscripts and tracking, and reference cross-linking via CrossRef and MEDLINE. Powered by Naturejobs, the Career and Recruitment division of the journal Nature, Pathologyjobs provides recruiters with unique vehicles to advertise. Their Nature website is outstanding with free abstracts of all articles, integrated searches, online archives of all full-text articles from 2000 available through a personal or institutional subscription, and author index-which searches author's names across all available articles. This is a very powerful force in research and education for our members to utilize. In addition, the scientific abstracts for the past three years are now online and searchable. (Please see our USCAP and the Nature websites).

Nature Publishing Group publishes the leading journal in science/medicine and Nature has an impact factor of 31,434! Nature Publishing Group (NPG) publishes 16 of the top 50 journals in Impact Factor in the world, and of their academic/society journals - 16, including our two, are in the top 10 of their respective categories. Scientific American is now part of NPG with its over 140 Nobel-Prize writers. Our Two Journals (Modern Pathology and Laboratory Investigation) are considered two of the top four or five general pathology diagnostic and investigative journals in the world (including by Impact Factor). Modern Pathology is now the top (by Impact Factor) pathology journal dedicated to general diagnostic anatomic/surgical pathology. 85% of their papers are published online within 30 days, both have impact factors of above 4.5, and connects to over 35,000 professionals in pathology and other disciplines online. Laboratory Investigation (LI) has over 950,000 page views, over 100,000 eTOCs, and 94,000 Pub Med Linkouts, and Modern Pathology has 2 million page views (averaging more than 70,000 webpage visits/month), 84,000 eTOCs, and 147,000 PubMed Linkouts each year. No one can match that! And our impact factors continue to climb. Our journals reach over 70 different countries. These journals both now have four (4!) pages of free color available.

Other educational endeavors by the USCAP these past few years include:
  1. The establishment of the eAcademy (go to: www.uscap.org for further information). This online long distance-learning tool renders CME and/or SAMs credit for a minor charge. This is under the Direction of Dr. John Sinard (Yale). The APECS cases (anatomic pathology cases) started in and there are presently over four dozen interactive, dynamic cases of all types available.

  2. The First and Largest American Board of Pathology-approved "Self Assessment Modules" (SAM): Diagnostic Cytopathology 07. We now have multiple SAM offerings: see our USCAP Website for a listing of our "five sets" of SAM offerings. According to the ABP the USCAP has more SAMS than any other society (one for every day of the year: over 360).

  3. The continuing development of the CME Portfolio for members; in the future there will be an opportunity for members to have an "organ - specific" document of their CME and SAMS. .

  4. Continuing involvement in altruistic activities, including West and Eastern Sub-Saharan Africa.

  5. Continuing growth of the free USCAP "Knowledge Hub/Pathology Portal"

  6. Over 500 Virtual Slides are now up on the USCAP Website for free (e.g., IAP Centennial; Annual evening Specialty Conferences)

  7. The continued "Naturization"of Laboratory Investigation (watch for future developments of this type for Modern Pathology coming soon!)

  8. The development of the Complete Itinerary Planner (electronic planner) for the Annual Meeting

  9. Online Membership Renewal and Registration

  10. A Poster Creation Service and ability to demonstrate entire abstract online

  11. Pod casts of the IAP Centennial Key Note Addresses, and 2007-2010 Annual addresses.

  12. Online Evaluation of all of the Academy's Courses

  13. The Recruitment of a Director of Marketing and Development for the Academy (Victoria Hann) and Director of Education (Candace Spradley).

  14. Many other upcoming opportunities for our members including the eLibrary of hundreds of hours of ended Short Courses and Special Courses on our USCAP website (online/long distance learning) with CME and SAMS credits.

EXHIBITORS: In addition to the high number of attendees, we also reached record-breaking numbers in our Exhibit Hall. With 121 exhibitors and 285 booths, this proved to be our largest Exhibit Show in history, with a 20% increase in booths over last year. In fact since 2004 with its 129 booths, we have more than doubled the exhibit booths! In recent years, the Academy has twice won Tradeshow Week's Award for the "Fastest 50 Growing Shows". With our 100th meeting in 2011 we anticipate this number will continue to increase.

By action of Council, the USCAP instituted a Strategic Planning Initiative in 2003-2004 to look at the future of pathology and The Academy. Summer retreats (actually advances) directed by Drs. David Hardwick and Jeffrey Myers have continued, and implementation of these educational goals and strategies have been implemented, and are continuing to be implemented. The Long Term Strategic Planning Initiatives continue.

For the last seven years, the Academy rolled out a number of new initiatives for our Junior members including: Several programs for pathologists-in-training were instituted-- including the Fellowship Fair with 40-55 institutions to discuss hundreds of fellowships (this year 48) ; the new evening Specialty Conference just for house staff/fellows; and the House Staff Hospitality Room where Academy and Pathology leaders from throughout North America were present to talk with the house staff. In addition the Weiss and Loda/Berhman courses listed above are aimed for these young pathologists as well.

The USCAP's annual summer pathology review course and update- Diagnostic Pathology, with its fourteen outstanding faculty was directed by Drs. Jennifer Hunt and Henry Tazalaar. Last year's course (98) came with a 1,100 page handout and a 3800 image CD-ROM! The 2011 Meeting will be held from July 24-29, 2011 in Snow King Resort, Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

This was the sixth year for the USCAP Winter (January) Course entitled "Diagnostic Cytopathology" under the initiation, leadership and direction of Dr. Celeste Powers (Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond). This 2 l/2 day weekend intense and advanced course has a complete handout and the extensive CD (with thousands of images) was very well received. There were over 100 individuals in attendance in January 2011. Next year's Diagnostic Cytopathology for Practicing Surgical and Cytopathologists will be on January 14-16, 2012 in warm Scottsdale, Arizona.

The educational initiative of the USCAP is Practical Pathology Seminars, in its fifth year, under the direction of Dr. John Goldblum (Cleveland Clinic) . It was held from New York City, April 29-May 2, 2010. Topics include: Dermatopathology, Pulmonary Pathology, GI Pathology, Hematopathology and Soft Tissue Pathology. The next PPS meeting is in Paris Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada, April 28-May 1, 2011 and also deals with five major areas of anatomic pathology.

This year's Long Course is "Practical Solutions to Common Problems in Pulmonary Pathology" by Drs. Myers and Luise-Katzenstein. As usual there will be an extensive handout/syllabus and a CD with a great many images. Two new courses on Basic/Elementary Molecular Pathology (given by Dr. Jennifer Hunt et al.) and Basic Cytopathology (given by Dr. Elsheikh et.al.) were as noted above introduced.

Next year, we will have two new added USCAP Companion Societies: Association for Pathology Informatics (API) and the Association of Veterinary Pathology. More about this later.

There are several additions to our USCAP Committees: Six new members of the Education Committee (under the Direction of Dr. John Goldblum) are: Drs. Sanja Dacic, Richard Zaino, Marissa Nucci, Steve Billings, John Cheville and Alex Lazar. The two new Junior Members are: Drs. Ashley Cimino-Mathews and Kristie L. White.

Dr. Linda Ferrell (UCSF) , is by vote of the membership the new President-Elect of the Academy, and Dr. Jeffrey Myers is the Vice President. . The newly elected (by the Academy membership) Council members are: Drs. Adam Bagg, Joel Greenson, and Ester Oliva. The Finance Committee is headed by Dr. Peter Banks (Carolinas Medical Center) and our newest member is Dr. Julia Dahl.. Dr. Jim Linder was reappointed.. The Publications Committee is chaired by Dr. Ronald DeLellis with Drs Cesar Moran and Pedrum Argani as our newest members. The newest members of the Ramzi Cotran Young Investigator Committee are Drs. Kathleen Cho and Laura Lamps. New Members of the Castleman Award Committee include: Drs Jennifer Hunt, Cristina Antonescu, and Matt van de Rijn. The newest members of the Vogel Award Committee are Drs. Rex Bentley and Ilan Weinreb. Dr. Bruce Smoller is our newest Alternate Delegate to the will join Dr. Jack Strong as Delegate, and Dr. Bill Gardner as a member of the Pathology Section Council at the AMA House of Delegates. The newest member (at large) of our USCAP Nominating Co is Alan Tucker. All of the members of the various USCAP Committees are noted on our website ( www.uscap.org ).

Please check the USCAP Website ( www.uscap.org ) for an immense number of educational materials which are free. Over six years worth of our evening 19 plus Specialty Conferences and over 26 Companion Society's materials are up as well 100 excellent, ended Short Courses and available to anyone who wishes to utilize them. In addition, as noted before, three successive years of our scientific abstracts are now online and searchable, and can be downloaded, as well as many Short Courses. That's over 5,000 searchable cutting-edge scientific abstracts! We also have a Table of Contents by over 24 organ systems/subspecialties of our nineteen hundred entries/modules for all to have for free. Our USCAP Website continues to have record-setting hits with over 46 million "hits" and 5.6 million page downloads in 2008 from 22,000 unique pathologists in 168 countries–a true global forum for our colleagues. That also includes from 10,000-15,000 slide views a month for our Virtual Slides. In 2009 we had 51 million "hits" and 6.1 million page downloads from 33500 plus pathologists in over 180 countries. The USCAP is happy to provide this free altruistic service for pathologists throughout the world. Go to: www.uscap.org for the largest eBook in the history of anatomic and diagnostic molecular pathology, for free. Each of our 2000+ educational modules are receiving at least 20 page downloads each month (thus each and every one of our educational modules is helping someone throughout the world). The March 2010 website showed over 17 million "hits" from over 33,500 individual pathologists and virtually every educational module on our website received at least 20 page downloads that month!!!! In the year 2010 we had 78.5 million total "hits" (up 50% from 2009), 6.48 million plus page views, and 33, 586 unique visitors (up nearly 40% from the previous year). This is a conservative count as it does not count our Academy visitors from MemberMax, Marathon, Careers and the Virtual Hallway. Thus the USCAP presence world-wide continues to expand on a variety of platforms to serve the entire world of pathology. At present, the USCAP membership is in excess of 10,600 pathologists (from 77 countries in addition to the US and Canada); over 2,000 of those are Junior Members. We continue to grow and be vibrant. It is clear that our colleagues in pathology are a very dedicated and professional lot. We are proud to be associated with them.

Next year's large Annual USCAP Meeting will be in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada from March 17-23, 2012.

Thanks for all your support for all those we serve--our patients, our physicians and our students.


Fred Silva, Secretary-Treasurer and Executive Vice President, USCAP