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Tall Cell Variant of Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma

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Book cover Thyroid FNA Cytology

Abstract

Tall cell variant (TCV) is an aggressive form of papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC), which is composed of tall carcinoma cells that are two to three times as tall as they are wide. The tall carcinoma cells often show abundant eosinophilic cytoplasm and papillary growth pattern. The nuclei have features characteristic of conventional PTC, such as intranuclear cytoplasmic inclusions, nuclear grooves, and ground glass appearance. This variant composes 10% of PTC and tends to occur in elderly patients. The tumor usually extends extrathyroidal tissue. Because of an association with aggressive clinical features, preoperative cytological diagnosis of TCV is clinically important. But, it is not easy to identify TCV in fine-needle aspiration cytology, because TCV and conventional PTCs have cytological overlapping, and the carcinoma cells with features of conventional PTC can be also seen in TCV cases. Herein, we show a case with TCV of PTC and described the cytological features of TCV.

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Correspondence to Miyoko Higuchi .

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Higuchi, M., Hirokawa, M., Kuma, S. (2019). Tall Cell Variant of Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma. In: Kakudo, K. (eds) Thyroid FNA Cytology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1897-9_27

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1897-9_27

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-13-1896-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-13-1897-9

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