Is it a Carcinoma or a Lymphoma? |
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| Sections Clinical History Light Microscopy Flow Cytometry Electron Microscopy Diagnosis Discussion Readers' Comments Reader Feedback |
Light MicroscopyTouch preparations were prepared from the mediastinal tumor. A portion of the the tumor was sent for immunophenotyping by flow cytometry. The remaining tissue was fixed in 10% neutral buffered formalin and entirely embedded for light microscopy. |
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 Fig 1. Magnify Image |
The touch preparations demonstrated, large, pale staining tumor cells that were admixed with darkly stained lymphoid cells. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Fig 2. |
The hematoxylin and eosin stained tissue sections showed lymph node tissue that was partially replaced as well as infiltrated by sheets of malignant cells that had pale cytoplasm. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Fig 3. Magnify Image |
These malignant cells had pale pink cytoplasm that contained focal vacuoles. The nuclei were oval and one to two dark nucleoli were present. Necrotic tumor cells were dense and were stained dark red. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A battery of immunohistochemical stains were performed. The antibodies were chosen to differentiate between an undifferentiated carcinoma, a malignant lymphoma, a malignant melanoma, a malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor, and a germ cell tumor. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The results of
the immunohistochemical stains are as follows:
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 Fig 4. Magnify Image |
Figure four illustrates the negative staining of the malignant cells for leukocyte common antigen. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Flow Cytometry No unique, clonal, population of malignant cells were identified. |
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| Electron Microscopy | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| February 1988 Case-of-the-Month | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||