Cytopathology Journal

Cytopathology September 2024 (Vol 35, Issue 5) – A Special issue: Central Nervous System

September’s issue of Cytopathology, now available online, is a special issue with the spotlight on central nervous system (CNS) cytopathology. It includes a fascinating series of nine articles brought together by guest editors José A. Jiménez Heffernan and Isabel Esteban-Rodríguez. As they highlight in their introductory editorial, intraoperative CNS cytopathology is widely used but is more often the domain of the neuropathologist and rarely features in the cytology literature. With emphasis on beautiful as well as informative images, these articles outline key cytological features for the recognition of CNS tumours. The descriptions follow the current 5th edition of the WHO classification of CNS tumours, making this is a unique accompaniment which offers us a fascinating insight and a practical approach to CNS intraoperative diagnosis.

Also this month, there are two review articles addressing different aspects of urine cytology but both highlighting potential for improving its utility. Farahani et al present a systematic review and meta-analysis, including 64 studies, to determine the impact of The Paris System for Reporting Urine Cytology (TPS), in improving cytology performance. Their analysis concludes that TPS’s suspicious and positive for high grade urothelial carcinoma categories have improved the utility of cytology in ruling in high-grade lesions, but that negative for high grade does not reliably rule out a high-grade lesion.

Ciaparrone et al present the findings of their literature review to exploring the current state and potential of computer assisted diagnosis (CAD) in urine cytology. Excitingly, CAD has potential to streamline workflow, improve diagnostic accuracy and to identify novel biomarkers and prognostic features; achieving this in practice will require ongoing research and evaluation, validation and approval, as well as training

Staying on the urine theme, an original article by Sakumo et al demonstrates that nuclear long diameter can be useful in distinguishing high grade urothelial carcinoma cells from reactive urothelial cells.

The Editor’s Choice for September is the original article by Haragan and Lee, showing that, using the real-time PCR Idylla™ platform, non-small cell lung cancer molecular profiling can be successfully performed using as little as 80 μL of endobronchial ultrasound-guided aspirate material.

Finally, for a shorter read, there is an interesting case report of primary pulmonary epithelioid hemangioendothelioma metastatic to the pleura, and an Enigma Portal quiz featuring a bone marrow smear.

Enjoy the September issue.