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 REPORT OF THE 94thd ANNUAL MEETING OF THE   The General Registration of the meeting was THE highest in all-time USCAP attendance (Chicago '02 and San Francisco '99 had previously topped the charts with 3194 and 3172 registrants, respectively). These attendance figures makes the annual meeting of the Academy the largest gathering, by far, of physician-pathologists in the world. Almost 14% 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: Mexico (78), Spain (57), Japan (48), United Kingdom (47), Italy (42), Ireland (41), France (30), Brazil (26), Germany (22), Argentina (20), Australia and Switzerland (19 each), Taiwan (15), Korea and the Netherlands (13 each), Austria (12), Turkey (11), Greece (9), Portugal (8) and from 1-7 pathologists from 38 other countries. Thus in toto, almost 450 international visitors from approximately 58 countries outside of the USA and Canada were in attendance. Of the 3289 general registrants, 1863 were Regular, Sustaining or Emeritus members (an all-time record) and 677 were Junior Members (also an all-time record attendance). There were 335 pathologists in practice who were not members and 206 residents/fellows who were not members (yet). Thus including the Resident Monitors and other students, there were over 900 residents/fellows at our meeting. The percentage of house staff attending the meeting who are members of the Academy vs./ those house staff not members are for the past five years - 41% , 69%, 67%, 66%, 76%, respectively. This probably relates to the effective recruitment we have had of pathology house staff/fellows/pathologists-in-training in the last 5 ˝ years. In July 1999 we had 520 Junior Members; in the following five and a half years we recruited over 3000 additional Junior Members (many of which have now become Regular Members). Dr. Ricardo Lloyd (Mayo) served a distinguished and active term as President of the USCAP. He turned over the gavel and the Presidency to Dr. Sylvia Asa (Toronto) as the new President of the Academy. 2098 scientific abstracts were submitted for evaluation (over 99% submitted electronically). Next year submission will be all electronic. The quality of the submitted abstracts remains very high. 1576 were accepted after "blind" peer review (75.1% acceptance). The review is conducted by at least 4 individuals from the Academy (3 "experts" in the area and one from the Academy Education Committee). The percentage of acceptance is generally dependent upon the space available at the hotel (which is booked 5-6 years in advance of the meeting). 1296 abstracts were presented in the poster sessions and 280 as platform sessions. We try to accommodate as many quality platform sessions as space allows. Abstracts were submitted from throughout the world (from approximately 40 countries and over 400 academic medical centers and institutions). This was the fourth year for the USCAP to have electronic submission of our scientific abstracts (in conjunction with Marathon, Inc). The submitting pathologist helped share the increased cost of this electronic submission-$25/abstract. These scientific abstracts are now online searchable by topic, disease, word, technique, author, institution, etc. (just click "Abstracts Online" on blue navigation bar at the top of the site). The last three years of scientific abstracts (over 4500) are now searchable. As noted before, over 900 pathologists-in-training and students attended the various portions of the meeting. As last year, almost 40% of all accepted scientific abstracts had a first author who is a pathologist-in-training. Four hundred and sixty three Stowell-Orbison Abstracts were submitted (the highest in Academy history). In the last two years we have had a 45% increase in number of Stowell-Orbison abstract submissions. 216 were accepted for the Stowell-Orbison competition, and an additional 150 were accepted as regular abstracts. Once again, the "scores" for the accepted Stowell-Orbisons were actually higher than the scores for the "regular" abstracts accepted for presentation (i.e, Non-Stowell-0rbison). There were four co-equal Stowell-Orbison Awards presented and four Certificates of Merit. The recipients, in alphabetical order of first authors name, of the Stowell-Orbison Awards are: Identification of a Gene Expression Signature That Differentiates Hepatocellular Adenoma from Well Differentiated Hepatocellular Carcinoma ZE Chen, KG Crone, MA Watson, JD Pfeifer, HL Wang,Washington University, St., Louis, MO Molecular Evidence for the Independent Origin of Multifocal Papillary Tumors in Patients with Papillary Renal Cell Carcinoma TD Jones, M Wang, GT MacLennan, JN Eble, B Delahunt, M Brunelli, G Martignoni, A Lopez-Beltran, SM Bonsib, TM Ulbright, F Ma, S Zhang, K Nigro, L Cheng, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN; Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH; Wellington Medical School, Wellington, New Zealand; Universita di Verona, Verona, Italy; Universita di Sassari, Sassari, Italy; Cordoba University, Cordoba, Spain Absence of p16 Gene (CDKN2A) Deletions in HNSCC Occurring in Young Adults EM O'Regan, OM Sheils, NC Murphy, M Ring, ME Toner, SP Finn, PC Smyth, S Cahill, JJ O'Leary, Dublin Dental School and Hospital, Dublin, Ireland; University of Dublin Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland; Coombe Womens Hospital, Dublin, Ireland Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma Versus Follicular Adenoma: Molecular Diagnosis by Cumulative Analysis of Gene Expression Ratios T Scognamiglio, J Kao, TJ Fahey 3rd, Y-T Chen, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York, NY The recipients of the Certificates of Merit are: Needle Core Biopsy of the Kidney for Mass Lesions: A Clinicopathologic Perspective Based on 196 Cases LR Harik, S Pashaei, PA Humphrey, P Tamboli, MB Amin, Emory University Hospital, Atlanta, GA; Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO; University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX Detection of Ganglion Cells by RET Oncoprotein in Hirschsprung Disease in Colonic Biopsies and Resections S Karim, CM Hession, S Marconi, DL Gang, CN Otis, Baystate Medical Center/Tufts University School of Medicine, Springfield, MA Novel BCL-6 Binding Proteins Identified by LC-MS/MS Suggest A Broader Role for BCL-6 in B-Cell Function RR Miles, DK Crockett, MS Lim, KSJ Elenitoba-Johnson,University of Utah Health Sciences Center, Salt Lake City, UT; ARUP Institute for Clinical and Experimental Pathology, Salt Lake City, UT BRAF, RAS, and RET Mutations in Malignant Struma Ovarii: A Comparative Study with Benign Struma Ovarii JF Schmidt, M Heinrich, V Derr, CL Corless, JA Fletcher, V Nosé,Brigham & Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA; Oregon Health & Sciences University, Portland, OR The ADASP/USCAP Autopsy Award winning abstract was: Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT)-Associated Thrombotic Microangiopathy (TMA). A Retrospective Autopsy Study K Siami, K Kojouri, K Swisher, J George, ZG Laszik, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK The ADASP/USCAP Surgical Pathology Award was: Metaplastic (Sarcomatoid) Carcinomas of the Breast Lack the Abnormally Long Telomeres of the Pleomorphic Sarcomas That They Mimic Morphologically T Sheridan, A Meeker, J Hicks, E Montgomery, A DeMarco, P Argali, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD 623 registrants attended the Long Course entitled "Epidermal Neoplasms" directed by Drs. Bruce Smoller (Univ. Arkansas) and Neil Crowson (Univ. Of Oklahoma and Regional Medical Labs/Tulsa). Early perusals of the critique form show that this course was very well done and very well liked by the registrants. The syllabus was quite complete (260 pages in length) and this Long Course has accompanying it a CD packed full of images. This Long Course will be published in the next year in Modern Pathology.(Last year's Long Course on Pathology of the Gonads is in the March 05 issue of Modern Pathology). Fifty-nine half-day Short Courses were presented and very well attended (with a total registration of Short Courses taken being 4615--that is the number of courses attended times the number of attendees at these sessions; an overall average of 80 pathologists/per Short Course offering). This is now the second largest attendance at the Academy's Short Courses in our history (with Chicago topping the charts at 4737). We believe that by the 06 annual meeting, well over two-thirds of our Short Courses will have CD's. Two all-day Special Courses were offered: one on Introductory Molecular Pathology (headed by Drs. Julia Bridge, Univ. Nebraska, and Margie Scott, Univ. Arkansas) filled attracting 182 registrants on Thursday; for the first time this course has a CD in addition to the extensive syllabus. The ongoing Advanced Molecular Pathology course headed by (Drs. Frederic Barr, Univ. of Pennsylvania) was held on Friday attracted 95 registrants. Twenty-three Companion Societies presented their educational endeavors on Saturday night and Sunday. The total registrations were 2371 (an all-time record exceeding even our '99 meeting in San Francisco's 2230 registrations). The American Society for Clinical Pathology Companion was first presented this year. For the past three years all of the Companion Societies and evening Specialty Conferences' handouts/syllabus have been placed on our website after the annual meeting. The Nathan Kaufman Timely Topic Lecture was given by Nobel Laureate Dr. Phillip Sharp from MIT. The topic was on Short Interacting RNA's (RNAi's) entitled "The Biologic and Potentially therapeutic Activities of Short RAS", arguably the "hottest topic" in biology/genetics/medicine right now. His lecture was elegant, timely, and very well received by the appreciative audience of over 2000 pathologists. In fact he noted at the beginning of his lecture that he "had never seen a room filled with so many pathologists!". Dr. David Page of Vanderbilt presented the Maude Abbott Lecture. His topic was "The Surgical Pathologist and the History of Breast Cancer." This elegant and wonderful lecture was also attended by over 2000 pathologists. Two Distinguished Pathologists Awards were presented this year to individuals in recognition of distinguished service in the development of the discipline of pathology. Drs. Bruce Beckwith and Robert Collins (Vanderbilt) were recognized by the Academy membership for their major and extensive contributions to pathology over the years. Please click on the pathologists' names in the previous sentence for biosketches of these two great pathologists. One President's Award was presented this year to a pathologist in recognition of major contributions to the profession of pathology. Dr. Andrew Huvos, Sloan-Kettering /Memorial, NYC. The F.K. Mostofi Distinguished Service Award went to Dr. Ronald DeLellis, Brown University, RI, for his major contributions to the Academy over the years. The Young Investigator Award was presented to Dr. Marc Ladanyi, Sloan-Kettering/Memorial,NYC for his extensive work in the field of tumor genetics. The recipient of the Castleman Award (for the best published paper in the field of human pathology ) was Dr. Andrew P. Weng (formerly of Brigham & Women's, Boston, presently of British Columbia Cancer Center, Vancouver) for his article in Science entitled "Activating Mutations of NOTCH1 in Human T Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia" Science, October 8, 2004 306: 5694: 269-71). It must be noted that again the number of applications for this prestigious award were numerous, with many outstanding individuals having papers published in journals such as Science, Lancet, Cancer Research and Clinical Cancer Research). The F. Stephen Vogel Award (for the most outstanding paper published in an Academy journal by a pathologist-in-training ) went to Dr. Dylan V. Miller (Mayo) for his paper entitled "Utilizing Nottingham Prognostic Index in microarray gene expression profiling of breast cancer" in Modern Pathology (2004) 12, 756-764. The 16 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. The handouts at these meetings continue to be highly sought-after. All of the evening Specialty Conferences are online on the Academy's website. For the past three 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 last day of our annual meeting (Friday AM) 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 30 high profile society-owned or affiliated journals and 7 of the top 20 in the world in impact factor. Both of our Academy's journals now offer 2 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 authors 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). By action of Council, the USCAP instituted a Strategic Planning Initiative in 2003 to look at the future of pathology and The Academy. Summer retreats (actually advances) directed by Dr. Jeffrey Myers have continued and implementation of these educational goals and strategies are now underway. This year in San Antonio, the Academy rolled out a number of new initiatives for our members including: Several programs for pathologists-in-training were instituted including the Fellowship Fair with over 30 institutions scheduled to appear to discuss over 120 fellowships, the new evening Specialty Conference just for house staff/fellows, and the House Staff Hospitality Room where about 100 Academy and Pathology leaders from throughout North America were present to talk with the house staff. Except for one or two days of initial light rain, the weather was terrific. The USCAP's annual summer pathology review course and update- Diagnostic Pathology, with its fourteen outstanding faculty will be held in "The American Riviera" (Santa Barbara, California at the Fess Parker Doubletree Resort from July 9-15, 2005. It is Directed by Drs. Sylvia Asa and Greg Fuller. (See registration information for complete schedule). Last years course (04) came with a 1100 page handout and a 3800 image CD-ROM! This year the USCAP instituted a new endeavor--a new 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 was held at the Fairmont Turnberry Isle Resort and Club in Ft. Lauderdale (Aventura), Florida and attracted 90 pathologists from 25 states and 8 countries. The 700 plus page handout and the extensive CD (with over a thousand images) was very well received. We will be doing another winter Diagnostic Cytopathology course next year in January 2006. Next year's annual USCAP meeting will be held in New Orleans, LA from February 11-15, 2006. The Long Course will be directed by Drs. Linda Ferrell and Volkan Adsay on "The Pathology of Liver and Pancreas". There will be an extensive handout/syllabus and a CD with a great many images. There are several additions to our USCAP Committees: Four new members of the Education Committee (under the Direction of Dr. Jeffrey Myers ) are: Neal Goldstein (William Beaumont, Michigan), David Huntsman (UBC, Vancouver), and Audrey Lazenby (Univ. Alabama ) and Andrew Renshaw (Baptist Hospital, Miami). In addition by action of our Long Term Strategic Planning Initiatives under Dr. Jeffrey Myers we have added two Junior Members to the USCAP Education Committee: Drs. Sigrid Wayne (PGY3, Univ. Iowa) and Michael Bennett (PGY 3, Brigham & Women's Hospital). Dr. Christopher Crum (Brigham & Womens, Boston) is by vote of the membership the new Vice-President of the Academy, and Dr. Henry Appelman (Univ. Michigan) is President-Elect. The newly elected (by the Academy membership) Council members are: Drs. Cheryl Coffin (Univ. Utah/Children's), Greg Fuller (MD Anderson), and Bruce Smoller (Univ. Arkansas). Dr. Jack Strong (LSU) heads the Finance Committee and our new member is Dr. Peter Banks. The Publications Committee is chaired by Dr. Allen Gown with Dr. Jeffrey Ross as our newest member. The newest members of the Young Investigator Committee are Drs. Mark Rubin and Richard Zarbo. New Members of the Castleman Award Committee include: Drs. Kathleen Cho, Fred Barr, Uri Nikiforov, and Mark Stoler. New members of the Vogel Award Committee are Drs. Mary Kay Washington and Allan Tucker. All of the members of the various USCAP Committees are noted on our website (www.uscap.org). The new at-large member of the Nominating Committee (under the Direction of Dr. Ricardo Lloyd) is Linda Ferrell (Univ. California/San Francisco) If you have nominations for Council (or any available committee position) please let the central Augusta office know (fsilva@uscap.org). Please check the USCAP Website (www.uscap.org) for an immense number of educational materials which are free. Approximately three year's worth of evening Specialty Conferences and Companion Society's materials are up and available to anyone who wishes to utilize them. In addition, as noted before, our scientific abstracts (2003-2005) are now online and searchable, and can be downloaded, as well as many Short Courses. That's over 4500 searchable scientific abstracts! We now also have a Table of Contents by 19 organ systems/subspecialties of our over 1000 educational entries/modules for all to have for free. Dr. David Hardwick, on behalf of the Chair of the Finance Committee announced at the 2005 Business Meeting (and to widespread appreciation), that despite the many new initiatives of the Academy, there would be no increase in the cost of the Academy's dues this year. At present the USCAP membership is in excess of 9800 pathologists; almost 2000 of those are Junior Members. We continue to grow and be vibrant. At our annual meeting in San Antonio, the Council of the Academy confirmed the admission of 853 new members this year (232 Regular Members and 621 Junior Members); this tops last years all-time record. It is clear that our colleagues in pathology are a very dedicated and professional lot. We are proud to be associated with them. Thanks for all your support for all those we serve--our patients, our physicians and our students. See you in Santa Barbara and New Orleans.
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