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Long-term Culture of Human Breast Cancer Specimens and Their Analysis Using Optical Projection Tomography
Published on: July 29, 2011
Phyllodes tumor of the breast. A cytomorphologic approach based on evaluation of epithelial cluster architecture
Ken Shimizu1, Motoko Korematsu
1Department of Anatomic and Diagnostic Pathology, Dokkyo University School of Medicine, 880, Mibu, Tochigi, 321-0293, Japan.
Objective:
To develop more useful criteria for differentiating benign phyllodes tumor (BPT) from fibroadenoma (FA) of the breast on fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC), with a focus on architectural features of epithelial clusters.
Study Design:
The smears of 18 cases obtained by preoperative FNAC, each with tissue-proven BPT, were compared to those of 25 cases of FA. Several features of epithelial clusters in both groups were studied, with histologic correlation.
Results:
BPT exhibited large epithelial clusters longer than 1 mm, with a wavy or folded shape, that could be distinguished from the small or medium-sized clusters with tubular, blunt-branching or monolayered contours in FA. This appearance of BPT was equivalent to the characteristic phyllodes pattern of its histology.
Conclusion:
The size and shape of epithelial clusters are important diagnostic clues in addition to several findings that have been described as differentiating BPT from FA on FNAC.
