ALK Is a Specific Diagnostic Marker for Inflammatory Myofibroblastic Tumor of the Uterus
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor (IMT) is a myofibroblastic/fibroblastic neoplasm of intermediate malignant potential. It is frequently characterized by genetic fusion of ALK with a variety of partner genes, which results in the activated ALK signaling pathway that can be targeted with kinase inhibitors. IMTs can occur in the gynecologic tract, with the uterus (corpus and cervix) being the most frequent site. Recent studies suggest that IMTs in the gynecologic tract are underrecognized, and a low-threshold for performing ALK immunohistochemistry has been proposed. The aim of this study was to evaluate the specificity of ALK immunohistochemistry for IMTs among uterine mesenchymal and mixed epithelial/mesenchymal tumors. We performed ALK immunohistochemistry on 14 molecularly confirmed uterine IMTs and 260 other uterine pure mesenchymal and mixed epithelial/mesenchymal tumors. Cases showing any positive cytoplasmic and/or membranous staining of the tumor cells were considered to be ALK positive. All 14 IMTs were confirmed to harbor ALK genetic fusion by RNA sequencing, and ALK immunostaining in the form of granular cytoplasmic positivity with paranuclear accentuation was observed in all 14 cases. ALK was negative (complete absence of staining) in all the other pure mesenchymal tumors and in all mixed epithelial/mesenchymal tumors examined. Our findings show that ALK is a highly specific diagnostic immunohistochemical marker for ALK fusion in uterine mesenchymal tumors. In the work-up of uterine mesenchymal tumors, particularly smooth muscle tumors showing myxoid stromal changes, a diagnosis of IMT should be strongly considered if ALK positivity is observed.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".