Case Study: January 2009

A 45 year old man presents with a lesion on the iris. The patient has a fine needle aspirate of the iris lesion.

Refer to the 2 figures that show the aspirated lesion.

Questions

1. What is the morphology of the cells?
2. What is the cytological diagnosis?

Click to show answers

1. Spindle cells with pleomorphic spindle nuclei, with nucleoli. The cytoplasm is tapering and contains brown pigment.

2. This is the typical morphology of melanoma aspirated from a uveal site.