PTEN and neoplasm: Sasaki et al. (2001) showed that 7/72 AO had PTEN gene alterations; 2 had homozygous DMBT1 deletions, but at least one reflected unmasking of a germline DMBT1 deletion. Moreover, no mutations were found in ERCC6 exon 2 and only two patients had a chemotherapeutic response, but with unexpected short survival times. Therefore, PTEN is a target of 10q loss, and PTEN alterations are associated with aggressive tumor phenotypes regardless of chemosensitivity (Sasaki et al., 2001).