Giant cells are seen in response to all manner of "foreign matter." Pieces of wood (a splinter for example), rocks, parts of the dashboard from your car, even bits of keratin and hair that get "injected" into dermis of your skin. Effectively the histiocytes come together to try to form a phagocytic cell big enough to gobble up a really large object. So why do we see them here? This one's for you figure out.

Mark Braun, MD braunm@indiana.edu
Copyright 1998, the Trustees of Indiana University