[Pathological study of the pleomorphic carcinoma of the lung].

OBJECTIVE

A clinicopathological study of 10 patients with pleomorphic carcinoma of the lung.

METHODS

Histopathological and immunohistochemical staining for keratin, vimentin, Mac387, desmin, actin and S-100 protein were used for this study.

RESULTS

Pleomorphic carcinoma of the lung was found to often occur in males above 50 years of age and with clinical symptoms including cough, expectoration, haemoptysis and chest pain. The most frequent microscopic diagnosis was squamous cell carcinoma, and adenocarcinoma, accompanied by spindle and giant cells. The epithelial component of pleomorphic carcinoma of the lung displayed positivity for keratin and the spindle cells displayed positivity for vimentin. In some cases the neoplastic epithelial component and spindle cells showed positive expression of both keratin and vimentin.

CONCLUSION

Pleomorphic carcinoma of the lung may display various histopathological changes making it easy to be misdiagnosed as carcinosarcoma. Understanding its pathogenesis and histopathology is important for the diagnosis and differential diagnosis.