Diagnostic electron microscopy and the influence of Dr. Juan Rosai

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was introduced by Ruska and Knoll as a laboratory technique in 1933. Thereafter, several decades passed before the methods required for its optimal implementation were fully developed. Early uses of TEM were in Botany, rather than in Medicine; however, isolated publications did catalog the ultrastructural characteristics of several individual human tumor types. Finally, in 1968, Rosai and Rodriguez authored an important article, introducing the concept that TEM could be used for the differential diagnosis of histologically similar neoplasms. This publication heralded the steadily increasing application of TEM in anatomic pathology over the following decade, including continuing contributions by Dr. Juan Rosai. This brief review summarizes his influence on clinical electron microscopy, and lists some of the lesions for which that procedure is still a useful means of analysis.