Abstract
Pulmonary hamartoma is one of the common benign tumors in lungs. Differentiation of hamartoma from malignant lung tumors by chest X-ray is sometimes very difficult. Therefore, it is of clinical value to make a cytological diagnosis of the hamartoma before peration.
For this purpose we studied a pulmonary hamartoma cytologically with materials obtained by needle biopsies (percutaneous, during operation and postoperative). Fourteen resected pulmonary hamartomas including twelve chondromatous and two non-chondromatous hamartomas were utilized for this study.
Cartilage cells, epithelial cells, fibroblasts, histiocytes, lymphocytes, polymorphonucleocytes and fat cells were found in the smears. Cytological findings well reflected histological characteristics of pulmonary hamartomas. In diagnosis of the hamartoma, it is important to recognize two types of cells cartilage and epithelial. Cartilage cells which had a small irregular nucleus with gray or reddish purple cytoplasm were found in all cases of chondromatous hamartomas. Epithelial cells were found in eighteen out of twenty-one materials. These epithelial cells resembled the bronchial epithelial cells, but in some cases showed a slight atypical changes. Ten of twelve chondromatous hamartomas were diagnosed cytologically.
In conclusion, a pulmonary chondromatous hamartoma can be diagnosed by cytological analysis of the smears obtained by needle biopsy.
