FNAB of Pleura

Correct Diagnosis of a FNAB of Pleura

History:
A 47-year-old man had experienced vague chest pains for 2 months. A chest x-ray indicated a pleural-based lesion, which was biopsied using fine-needle aspiration.

Light microscopy:
Smear preparations revealed highly cellular tissue fragments (Fig. 1). The cell block confirmed the high degree of cellularity due to closely associated spindle cells (Fig. 2). The cytopathology differential diagnosis fibrosarcoma, mesothelioma and fibroma.

Figure 1: Cellular fragments of tumor in a smear preparation of the FNAB. Figure 2: Unifrom appearing spindle cells in the cell block prepared from the FNAB.

Electron microscopy was carried out on glutaraldehyde-fixed tissue fragments collected from the needle rinse at the time of the FNA biopsy.

Electron Microscopy


Figure 1: Cellular fragments of tumor in a smear preparation of the FNAB.	Figure 2: Unifrom appearing spindle cells in the cell block prepared from the FNAB.