ABSTRACT
Nucleolar organizer regions [NORs] represent nuclear activity in both normal and malignant cells. Using the argyrophilic technique on routinely processed formalin fixed paraffin sections, NORs appear as black dots. In the present work, benign tumors and their malignant counterparts in several organs [skin, colon, thyroid and prostate] have been studied. It was found that there is a significant increase in the mean number of AgNORs [X] in malignant cases [X = 5.95] which is more than their benign counterparts [X = 2.8] except in pilomatrixoma where the mean number was 10.3, 10.5. In dysplastic colonic polypi, the topographic distribution of NORs was similar to that found in well differentiated adenocarcinoma of the colon but still having a statistically significant difference in their count. So, NORs count could be useful in distinguishing between benign, dysplastic and malignant lesions of the skin, colon, thyroid gland and prostate
Subject(s)
Neoplasms/diagnosisABSTRACT
Fine needle aspiration [FNA] is a simple, rapid and inexpensive technique of sampling. A comparative study was carried out on 60 patients with accessible masses, including 29 cases of breast masses, nineteen cases of thyroid swellings and 12 cases of subcutaneous soft tissue masses. The highest accuracy rate was found in breast masses [93.1%], followed by thyroid swellings [84.2%], then subcutaneous tissue swellings [75%]. Cytologically undiagnosed breast cases were attributed to presence of dense sclerotic stroma, which yielded unsatisfactory smears. While in thyroid swellings, misdiagnosis of some cases was explained by coexistence of two pathologic lesions or similar features of benign and malignant well differentiated follicular tumors. In subcutaneous masses, FNA has a valuable role even in undiagnosed cases as it could differentiate between benign and malignant tumors