Dermatológia pre prax 4/2016

Cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma with acantholytic features – a dermatopathological view

Acantholytic (pseudoglandular, adenoid) type of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) represents about 2-4% of all cutaneous SCCs. It is a rare finding in a routine dermatopathological practice. The authors briefly describe two women, who were diagnosed to have SCC of the skin with focal acantholytic features. In both cases, histology revealed conventional invasive SCCs, that partly also exhibited pseudoglandular formations, accompanied by central acantholytic decomposition of the cancer cells. There was a solar degeneration of the connective tissue, but no association with actinic keratosis was found. The authors carried out a 5-years retrospective analysis and they found, these two cases represented 2.5% of all histologically proven primary invasive cutaneous SCCs diagnosed at their workplace, which corresponds to the literature data. Although from the clinical aspects this microscopic finding probably has no significant impact, due to imitation of the glandular structures it may cause diagnostic difficulties in bioptical practice.

Keywords: squamous cell carcinoma; histological subtypes, acantholytic feature