Edith E. Sproul, 92, professor emeritus of pathology
A memorial service is being planned for Edith E. Sproul, a renowned pathologist who served as a pathology professor at the UB medical school and as associate chief cancer research pathologist at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. Sproul, whose work with George Papanicolou of the Cornell University Medical School in New York City led to development of the pap smear, died Jan. 19 in Roswell Park after a brief illness.

She received her medical degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in New York.

Before coming to Buffalo, Sproul was a professor of pathology at the Columbia Medical College and later was chief executive officer of the Department of Pathology of the American University in Beirut.

While in New York she was the first to describe the relationship between general thrombophlebitis and pancreatic cancer and the first pathologist to describe the histological characteristics of early prostatic cancer. Along with Charles Gutman of Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York, she discovered the association between prostatic cancer and the prostate specific enzyme acid phosphatase.

She was a founding member of the pathology committee for the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group and a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

She is survived by her husband, Arnold Mittleman, professor emeritus of surgery at Roswell Park and UB.