Korean J Cytopathol.  1991 Jun;2(1):36-42.

Fine needle aspiration cytology of malignant thymoma: two cases of invasive thymoma and thymic carcinoma

• Cho MY
• Park YN
• Lee KG

Abstract

We report 4 cases of malignant thymoma which were composed of 2 cases of invasive thymoma and 2 cases of thymic carcinoma. The cytologic findings of invasive thymoma were similar to those of benign thymoma. The distinctive cytologic features of thymic carcinoma were necrotic background, irregular clusters and individually scattered arrangement of anaplastic epithelial cells, and some scattered mature small lymphocytes. These findings may be found in the Hodgkin'slymphoma, seminoma, and metastatic squamous cell carcinoma, undifferentiated carcinoma, and large cell carcinoma of the. lung. But, the feature of irregular clustering of anaplastic epithelial cell having scanty cytoplasm was different from Hodgkin'slymphoma and seminoma. Clinical and radiologic findings as well as cytologic finding were helpful in differential diagnosis of thymic carcinoma from metastatic carcinoma.

Keyword

Malignant thymoma; Invasive thymoma; Thymic carcinoma; Aspiration cytology

MeSH Terms

Biopsy, Fine-Needle*
Carcinoma
Carcinoma, Large Cell
Carcinoma, Squamous Cell
Cytoplasm
Diagnosis, Differential
Epithelial Cells
Lung
Lymphocytes
Seminoma
Thymoma*