Peritumoral clefting in basal cell carcinoma: correlation of in vivo reflectance confocal microscopy and routine histology
- 5 October 2010
- journal article
- Published by Wiley in Journal of Cutaneous Pathology
- Vol. 38 (2), 190-195
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0560.2010.01632.x
Abstract
Histopathologically, basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is characterized by basaloid tumor nodules of varying size showing peripheral palisading of cells and nuclei, and separation from surrounding stroma by optically empty appearing clefts. These are usually regarded as an artifact, occurring during routine tissue processing. Recently, reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM) has been applied for noninvasive, in vivo evaluation of BCC. Besides other features, small areas of low refractility separating tumor islands from the surrounding tissue can be observed in vivo, suggesting that the presence of amorphous material like mucin might be the causal factor for these clefts. A total of 13 BCCs were studied by RCM and histopathological techniques. Staining was performed with Alcian blue for the detection of peritumoral mucin. Correlation between RCM images and histopathological samples was studied, and the diameter of hyporefractile areas on RCM as well as the thickness of peritumoral mucin was measured. Good correlation was seen between dark areas on RCM and thickness of peritumoral mucin with a mean diameter of 14 µm (RCM) and 11.44 µm (histopathology), respectively. Pearson correlation coefficient was 0.605 (p < 0.0001). Our results show that the peritumoral cleft-like spaces seen in BCC on histopathology exist in vivo, and correspond to the peritumoral mucin deposition.Keywords
This publication has 7 references indexed in Scilit:
- Reflectance confocal microscopy of pigmented basal cell carcinomaJournal of the American Academy of Dermatology, 2006
- Sensitivity and specificity of reflectance-mode confocal microscopy for in vivo diagnosis of basal cell carcinoma: A multicenter studyJournal of the American Academy of Dermatology, 2004
- Real-time, in vivo confocal reflectance microscopy of basal cell carcinomaJournal of the American Academy of Dermatology, 2002
- Investigation of basal cell carcionoma by confocal laser scanning microscopy in vivoSkin Research and Technology, 2002
- In Vivo Confocal Scanning Laser Microscopy of Human Skin II: Advances in Instrumentation and Comparison With Histology11The authors have declared conflict of interest.Journal of Investigative Dermatology, 1999
- Video-rate confocal scanning laser microscope for imaging human tissues in vivoApplied Optics, 1999
- In Vivo Confocal Scanning Laser Microscopy of Human Skin: Melanin Provides Strong ContrastJournal of Investigative Dermatology, 1995