Touch-print Cytology of Brain Tumors and Its CorreIation with Histological Features

Abstract

A cytological preparation of neurosurgical biopsy material is one technique by which a rapid and reliable diagnosis can be made. Many specimens unfit for sectioning may be used, and the detailed cytological nature of the tumor can be evaluated, thus providing valuable information in differential diagnosis from other primary tumors or metastatic lesions. Touch-print specimens of 48 cases of eNS tumors collected during the last year from 1991 are reviewed and compared with paraffin sections of the same biopsies. Touch prints were prepared with specimens for frozed section diagnosis, just before they were utilized for frozen sectioning. Smears were stained both with Wright-Giemsa and Papanicolaou methods. Fourty eight cases of brain tumors consisted of 14 pituitary adenomas, 11 meningiomas, 7 oligodendrogliomas, 4 astrocytomas, 3 glioblastoma multiforme, 3 malignant lymphomas, 2 chordomas, 2 neurilemmomas, 1 pineocytoma, and 1 craniopharyngioma. The cytology and histology of pituitary adenoma and meningioma correlated best in this series. The most consistent findings were monotonous eccentric round nuclei and plump polygonal cytoplasm in the pituitary adenomas and meningothelial cell clusters with whorling pattern and psammoma bodies in meningiomas. The main dificulties encountered were differentiation between nonspecific glial hyperplasia and low-grade astrocytoma as well as grading of astrocytoma and oligodendroglioma. The remaining tumors revealed fairly consistent findings to be correlated with biopsy specimens.