General and Systemic Histopathology, C601&C602
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The appearance of this
malignancy is a little atypical. Generally the metastases pretty
faithfully reproduce the histological pattern of the primary lesion.
Renal cell is probably the one tumor that most consistently breaks this
rule. Here we see two patterns in the same metastatic focus; a spindle
pattern and the more typical clear cell pattern. See this slide with the virtual microscope. |
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This slide shows lung tissue that is essentially replaced with metastatic renal cell carcinoma. You will see clusters of cells with very clear, washed out appearing, cytoplasm. The cells appear in clusters that mimic the configuration of a renal tubule. The cells are clear because the lipid they once contained was "washed out" by the xylene during the processing of the tissue in preparation for sectioning. |