Clinical presentation A 23 year old woman presented to her General Practitioner for a follow up smear. Eversion was seen at the posterior lip. Her previous smear was reported as possible high grade and the target punch biopsy showed low grade intraepithelial lesion (LSIL) with human papillomavirus (HPV). Cytological and Histological findings, and Additional testing On cytology, a … [Read more...]

Introduction Fine needle biopsy (FNB) was introduced in the early 1930s by Stewart1, Martin and Ellis2 and since then has become widely accepted and recognised as a rapid, safe, cheap and reliable method. In the field of dermatology, cytology had already been in use since 1927 by Dudgeon and Patrick for diagnosing BCCs4. It gained more attention when Tzanck used smears from blister … [Read more...]

Introduction Lung cancer represents a major health burden worldwide and is the leading cause of cancer related death in Australia 1. Of the 3,260 patients presenting with lung cancer each year in NSW, 80% have NSCLC and the 5 year survival is only 15% 1. The poor prognosis of these patients is mainly due to most patients presenting with advanced or metastatic NSCLC making them … [Read more...]

Clinical Presentation A 70 year old female presented with thyroid swelling and lymphadenopathy in the neck. Ultrasound imaging showed an irregular, hypodense 32mm mass with ring-enhancing components in the right lobe of the thyroid, and numerous pathological appearing lymph nodes lateral to the thyroid and throughout the upper mediastinum, the largest necrotic lymph node measuring 15mm. … [Read more...]

This is a summary of a presentation for the QLD Branch a few years ago. It was part of a senior scientist session themed “I have learned...” It started with a case study of a ThinPrep cervical specimen from a 39 year old in which the primary screener had marked LUS and put the slide up for review by a senior scientist. The reviewer agreed there was LUS but found some … [Read more...]