Effusion Cytology of Squamous Cell Carcinoma

전이성 편평 세포암종의 체액 세포학적 소견

It is very rare to diagnose a squamous cell carcinoma when the carcinoma cells are observed in various body fluids. The effusion cytology of squamous cell carcinoma has not been sufficiently studied till now. We examined 10 cases of body fluid cytologic specimen diagnosed as metastatic squamous ceil carcinoma, which were selected among 2,100 body fluid cytology cases collected from 1986 to 1991. The patients had been confirmed to have primary squamous ceil carcinomas. The backgrounds of cellular aspirates were necrotic in most and the cells appeared in clusters or individually. The cell clusters showed round and smooth margins, mimicking adenocarcinoma, but in flat sheets rather than three-dimensional bails. the individual cells were most frequently Graham's 3rd-type cells, found in all cases, which were described as 1.5 times large as the parabasal cells and having small cytoplasmic rims. Other malignant squamous cells were undifferentiated cells, polygonal cells, fiber cells, and tadpole cells with decreasing order of frequency. The recognition of various features of malignant squamous cells would be helpful for the diagnosis of squamous ceil carcinoma found in effusion cytology.