Summary Brief Abstract Citation MEDLINE ASN.1 XML/SGML LinkOut Related Articles Protein Links Nucleotide Links Popset Links Structure Links Genome Links OMIM Links

Show: 5 10 20 50 100 200 500 Items 1-2 of 2 One page.

1: Am J Clin Pathol 1998 Mar;109(3):315-9

Related Articles, Books, LinkOut

Comment in:

• Am J Clin Pathol. 1998 Nov;110(5):695
• Am J Clin Pathol. 1998 Nov;110(5):695-6

Tumor cell (dys)cohesion as a prognostic factor in aspirate smears of breast carcinoma.

Yu GH, Cajulis RS, De Frias DV.

Department of Pathology, Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

As the ability of fine-needle aspiration biopsy to separate benign from malignant lesions approaches its limits, the potential to provide additional prognostic information based on these same specimens has received increasing attention. An area we have pursued is based on the recognized finding that many neoplastic cells exhibit altered expression of intercellular adhesion molecules. In this study, we evaluated a large number of preoperative fine-needle aspiration smears (83 cases) of histologically proven primary breast ductal carcinoma in an attempt to correlate the degree of cellular dyscohesion in the aspirate with the presence of local (ipsilateral axillary lymph node) metastases. We found that although the smear pattern of primary tumors greater than 3 cm showed no correlation with the presence of positive axillary nodes, the degree of tumor cell dyscohesion of tumors less than 3 cm (60 cases) as seen in aspirate smears did correlate with the presence of regional metastases. Poorly cohesive primary tumors were always associated with local metastases (4 of 4 cases, 100%) compared with those of intermediate (15 of 37 cases positive, 40%) and high cohesion (5 of 19 cases positive, 26%). Thus, we believe the evaluation of tumor cell (dys)cohesion in cytologic smears shows great promise as a simple, cost-effective technique to predict the biologic behavior of breast carcinoma.

PMID: 9495204 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

2: Am J Clin Pathol 2001 Feb;115(2):219-23

Related Articles, Books, LinkOut

Cellular dyscohesion in fine-needle aspiration of breast carcinoma. Prognostic indicator for axillary lymph node metastases?

Schiller AB, Tadros TS, Birdsong GG, Grossl NA.

Departments of Pathology, Emory University School of Medicine and Grady Memorial Hospital, Atlanta, GA, USA.

The role of fine-needle aspiration (FNA) in the diagnosis of breast carcinoma is established. We evaluated whether the degree of cellular dyscohesion and the nuclear grade in FNA material of breast carcinomas are reliable prognostic predictors for ipsilateral axillary lymph node metastasis. FNA specimens from 98 women with infiltrating ductal and infiltrating lobular carcinomas were evaluated by 2 observers for degree of cellular dyscohesion and nuclear grade. Follow-up specimens from lumpectomy and/or mastectomy with axillary dissection were available for each patient. By univariate analysis, degree of cellular dyscohesion and nuclear grade were not predictive of axillary lymph node metastasis regardless of tumor size. High histologic grade, size greater than 2 cm, and patient age younger than 52 years were significant predictors of metastasis. By multivariate analysis, size greater than 2 cm and age younger than 52 years were statistically significant for lymph node metastasis. In contrast with a published study, the results of the present study fail to show cellular dyscohesion in FNA specimens as predictive of lymph node metastasis; however, the scoring method for determining the degree of cellular dyscohesion is reproducible between 2 independent observers.

Publication Types:

• Evaluation studies

PMID: 11211610 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]