First reports of subcutaneous sparganosis in Sri Lanka.

OBJECTIVE: To report and create awareness of sparganosis, a parasitic zoonosis caused by a larval stage of Spirometra sp. SETTING: Two patients with non-tender subcutaneous lumps. DIAGNOSIS CRITERIA: Morphology of solid cestode larva in excision biopsies. CONCLUSIONS: Although these two instances were innocuous, infection is potentially dangerous as larvae are long lived and could invade vital organs. The most likely source of infection in Sri Lanka is ingestion of the infected first intermediate host, Cyclops, in water.

Necrotising lymphadenitis of Kikuchi and Fijimoto in Sri Lanka.

We present the clinicopathological features of 10 patients with Kikuchi's lymphadenitis. It is important to distinguish this unusual form of necrotising lymphadenitis, both clinically and histologically, from lymphoma and infective lymphadenitis, including mycobacterial infection. The 10 lymph node biopsies studied were from young adults (9 women) with fever, cervical lymphadenopathy and elevated ESR. This is the first documentation of this condition in Sri Lanka. This benign self-limiting condition can be mistaken for lymphoma or infective lymphadenitis.

Aspiration cytology of breast lumps.

The results of 287 aspirations performed on palpable breast lumps over a period of 20 months are presented. This is the first documentation of a Sri Lankan experience of this technique. The cytological assessment showed 52 malignant, 149 benign, 8 atypical, 6 suspicious and 72 inadequate aspirates. All lesions with a cytological diagnosis of malignancy were confirmed by histological assessment (False positives = 0). Histological follow up in 96 of the 149 cytologically benign lesions showed that 2 were malignant, giving a false negative rate of 2.1%. Three atypical lesions (37.5%) and four suspicious (66.2%) and 10 inadequate aspirates (13.7%) were also malignant.