Tufts Pathology Department

🔬Have you ever seen such pristine cilia with terminal bar? These respiratory cells are from a section of lung in a newborn infant with extralobar sequestration. This is a condition in which there is a segment of lung WITHOUT a normal connection to the main airway system. So these little hair-like cilia never even touched air or got to do their job of moving🦠 microbes and debris out of the airways.

🤔Other notable features of extralobar sequestration:
-Arterial supply from the aortic branches (NOT pulmonary arteries), appreciated on CT imaging studies
-Dilated bronchiole like spaces and dilated alveoli
-Lymphatic dilatation
-Mucin accumulation
-Large tortuous arteries



📷 Photo creds: Alicia Dessain PGY-3, Chief Resident

A beautiful pattern!🔬

Ameloblastoma is the second most common odontogenic tumor (benign), after odontoma. Key diagnostic features include:
- Peripheral palisading columnar cells at the basal layer
- Reverse polarization of these cells away from the basement membrane
- Stellate reticulum-like angular cells in the middle of the islands🏝️

This subtype was both follicular and plexiform (incredible anastomosing cords and sheets).



📷 Photo creds: Alicia Dessain PGY-3, Chief Resident

🤔Did you know your outer surface of your lung has elastic fibers to help maintain the right pressures when you breath?

Here is a nice case of visceral pleural tumor invasion demonstrated with an elastic stain: The pink arrow shows thick black and curvy elastic fibers covering the large pale tumor cells (lung adenocarcinoma).🔬

➡️The blue arrow shows an area where the elastic fibers are interrupted and being infiltrated by the tumor cells (purple circle). The blue ink marks the outer pleural surface of this lung specimen.

/CP

📷 Creds: Dr. Alicia Dessain PGY-3, Chief Resident

This pearly tumor is a epidermoid cyst. It is the 3rd most common lesion in cerebellopontine angle after schwannoma and meningioma.



📷Photo creds: Dr. Arkun, Director of Autopsy and Neuropathology

Meet Dr. Daniel Rust, a board certified pediatric pathologist. He is our director of surgical pathology at Tufts Medical Center. Dr. Rust also serves as a assistant professor at Tufts Medical School.👨‍🏫