• The Korean Journal of Cytopathology
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.45-51
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• 1993

A 30-year-old woman who was diagnosed as peripheral neuroblastoma by fine needle aspiration of a soft mass of the right upper arm is described. She presented a slowly growing, soft mass of the right upper arm for 1 month. The right humerus revealed no abnormal finding on X-ray. Ultrasonogram of the right upper arm revealed a well demarcated, smooth marginated solid mass without invasion of adjacent structures. Fine needle aspiration was done under the impression of soft tissue tumor with undetermined biologic behavior. The aspirates were highly cellular and the tumor cells were dispersed both singly and in clusters of varying size. The clusters occasionally showed a central capillary core and rosette-like structures. The tumor cells were small in size and had a small to medium amount of cytoplasm. Some of them revealed slender cytoplasmic processes. The nuclei showed distinct nuclear membranes, finely clumped chromatin and small conspicuous nucleoli. Cellular pleomorphism or mitotic figure was not definite. These cytologic findings were interpreted as a malignant, non-lymphomatous small round cell tumor, most likely representing peripheral neuroblastoma or Ewing's sarcoma. Final diagnosis was confirmed by simple excision as peripheral neuroblastoma.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.13 no.8
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• pp.1699-1704
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• 2009

If detected early enough, cervical cantor may have a good survival rate due to its preneoplastic state. However, the process is so time consuming that a medical expert can handle only a small amount of such examinations. In this paper, we propose a new nucleus extraction algorithm for uterine cervical pap smears in order to mitigate such burdens of medical experts. In the preneoplastic state cytodiagnosis images, it is important to differentiate three main areas - background, cytoplasm and nucleus. Thus, we apply lighting compensation and $3{\times}3$ mask of B channel in order to restore damaged image and remove noises respectively. The cell object is obtained from those clean binarized images with Grossfire algorithm. When there are clusters of cells, the target nucleus can be obtained with repetitive binarization of R channel brightness. In our experiment of using uterine cervical pap smears of 400 magnifications that is common in the diagnostic cytology, our method is able to extract 40 nucleus out of 45 population successfully.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.239-245
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• 2001

Background: Acute idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura(ITF) is one of the common hematologic disorders in children. Bone marrow aspiration (BMA) is often performed in children with acute ITP to rule out leukemia, aplastic anemia or other hematologic diseases. However, whether BMA is needed in children with typical clinical and hematological features of acute ITP have been questioned. This study was performed to examine the proper indication of BMA in acute childhood ITF. Materials and Methods: The medical records and BMA reports of children with the provisional diagnosis of acute ITP were reviewed from January 1984 to December 2000. Patients were divided into two groups, one with typical and another with atypical clinical and hematological features of acute ITP. Typical acute ITP group was characterized by the history of previous viral infection, well being appearance, no hepatosplenomegaly, no lymphadenopathy, normal Hb, WEC, neutrophil count and peripheral blood smear except thrombocytopenia. A platelet count of $50{\times}l0^9/L$ or lower was the cutoff level. Results: Total 120 children with the provisional diagnosis of acute ITP were included. One hundred eighteen of them were confirmed to have acute ITP by BMAs. Of these, 66 had typical and 54 had atypical features. All of typical features and 52 of 54 with atypical features of acute ITP were confirmed to have acute ITP by BMAs. Two patients with atypical features of acute ITP were diagnosed as aplastic anemia and myelodyspalstic syndrome, respectively, by BMAs. Conclusion: This study concludes that BMA is not needed for the children with typical features of acute ITP but it is needed for the children with atypical features of acute ITP to rule out other hematologic disorders.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.142-145
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• 2001

Purpose : Acute leukemia with hyperleukocytosis (more than $10^5/mm^3$) is at high risk of early sudden death, usually from intracerebral hemorrhage. Emergency cranial irradiation is a relatively simple approach to solve this the problem. We summarized our experience of cranial irradiation in 24 leukemic children who presented with hyperleukocytosis. Methods and Materials : Between 1990 and 1998, 40 children with acute leukemia presenting with hyperleukocytosis were referred for emergency cranial irradiation. Among these patients, 24 children were evaluable. There were 16 boys and eight girls, their ages ranged from 2 to 13 years (median 9.5 years). The initial leukocyte counts ranged $109,910/mm^3\;to\;501,000/mm^3$. Peripheral blood smear was peformed in all patients and noted the morphology of the blast. Introduction of emergency cranial irradiation was determined by the leukocyte counts (more than 100,000/mm) and the existence of the blast in peripheral blood smear. All patients were treated with intravenous hydration with alkaline fluid and oral allopurinol. Cranial irradiation started on the day of diagnosis. With 2 Gy in one fraction in 4 patients, 4 Gy in two fractions in 20 patients. Results : The WBC count had fallen in 19 patients (83%) and no intracerebral hemorrhage occurred after irradiation. There were five cases of early deaths. Four patients died of metabolic complications, and one patient with intracerebral hemorrhage. He died 5 hours after cranial irradiation. No patient had any immediate side effect from cranial irradiation. Conclusion : Our data suggest, that emergency cranial irradiation can be safely chosen and effective in childhood leukemic patients presenting with high leukocyte counts.