Abstrakt

The suitability and accuracy of cytological diagnosis of malignant mesothelioma (MM) remains controversial. Due to their rarity and morphological similarity to other malignant tumors, including reactive mesothelial hyperplasia, their identification is difficult. In spite of disadvantages of cytological analysis (lack of recognition of the dignity of individual mesothelial cells, poor detection of tumor architecture and spread) it provides a number of advantages (low invasiveness, minimization of tumor cell seeding, large diagnostic area). Cytological diagnosis is necessarily based on the detection of relevant features, such as high number of mesothelial cells, the appearance of a single epithelial cell line with mesothelial nuclear and cytoplasmic features, characteristic cell formations and cell clusters. Immunocytochemistry allows to detect the mesothelial cell character of suspicious cells and to differentiate these cells from malignant extrapleural tumors. The sensitivity of cytological MM diagnosis in effusions is low, at about 50%. The crucial influencing factor is the exfoliation rate of tumor cells. In those cases or in situations in which a histological diagnosis is not available or fails, the cytological diagnosis of MM has a high specificity of 99%, which is comparableto histology. Therefore the cytological analysis is equally reliable and should be included in the diagnostic workup due to its clear advantages [1, 2, 3].

Autoreninformation

Autoren

• L. Welker^{1, 2}
• L.I.S. van der Linde^{1, 2}
• H. Elmas^{1, 2}
• F. Stellmacher^{2, 3}
• B. Önal^{4, 5}
• K.F. Rabe^{1, 2}

Abteilungen

• ¹ Abteilung für Zytologie, LungenClinic Grosshansdorf,
• ² Airway Research Center North (ARCN), German Center for Lung Research (DZL),
• ³ Institut für Pathologie, Universitätsklinikum Schleswig-Holstein, Campus Lübeck, und Forschungszentrum Borstel, Leibniz Lungenzentrum, Deutschland,
• ⁴ Türkische Mesotheliom Arbeitsgruppe,
• ⁵ Düzce Universität, Abteilung für Pathologie, Konuralp Campus, Türkei

Adresse

PD Dr. med. Lutz Welker
LungenClinic Grosshansdorf GmbH
Wöhrendamm 80
22927 Großhansdorf
Email: [email protected]

Citation