Intraoperative assessment of sentinel lymph nodes at time of surgical excision of primary breast carcinoma is a crucial step in the determination of cancer extent and the need for further axillary dissection. Benign epithelial inclusions in axillary lymph nodes can mimic metastatic carcinoma and are a well-known pitfall during examination of these nodes in frozen or permanent sections. Most often, these inclusions consists of heterotopic mammary glands and are familiar to the practicing pathologist.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlthough it is increasingly evident that cancer is influenced by signals emanating from tumor stroma, little is known regarding how changes in stromal gene expression affect epithelial tumor progression. We used laser capture microdissection to compare gene expression profiles of tumor stroma from 53 primary breast tumors and derived signatures strongly associated with clinical outcome. We present a new stroma-derived prognostic predictor (SDPP) that stratifies disease outcome independently of standard clinical prognostic factors and published expression-based predictors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFine-needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy is one of the first-line investigations in any breast lump, and hence cytomorphological recognition of nonmammary metastatic tumors to the breast and their distinction from primary tumors is important. Breast metastasis from extra-mammary malignancy is rare, constituting 2% of breast tumors; even rarer are metastatic leiomyosarcomas. Our patient presented with a breast lump 2 years after operative removal of a retroperitoneal leiomyosarcoma.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Myeloid sarcoma is a tumor of myeloblasts or immature myeloid cells occurring in an extramedullary site. Myeloid sarcoma of female genital tract is very rare with no cases of vulvar location reported in English-language literature.
Case: A 73-year-old female presented with an indurated mass encompassing her left labia majora and vulva.
A cardiac transplant candidate with ischemic cardiomyopathy developed bilateral small parenchymal opacities in lower lobes of the lung. A fine-needle aspiration (FNA) was performed that revealed changes characteristic of amiodarone toxicity. Subsequently performed lung biopsies and electron microscopic studies confirmed the initial FNA diagnosis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF