A 57-year-old man has had slowly spreading pruritic scaly patches and plaques over the trunk and buttocks for six years, now evolving into raised tumours. Biopsy of a plaque shows a dermal infiltrate of atypical cerebriform lymphocytes that cluster within the epidermis forming collections surrounded by keratinocytes. These intraepidermal collections are called:

• A Warthin-Finkeldey giant cells
• B Munro microabscesses
• C Dutcher bodies
• D Pautrier microabscesses ✓

Explanation

Mycosis fungoides is a cutaneous T-cell lymphoma of skin-homing CD4-positive cells; its histological signature is the Pautrier microabscess, an intraepidermal nest of atypical cerebriform lymphocytes. Munro microabscesses are collections of neutrophils within parakeratotic stratum corneum seen in psoriasis. Dutcher bodies are intranuclear pseudoinclusions of immunoglobulin found in plasma cells in Waldenstrom macroglobulinaemia and related disorders, and Warthin-Finkeldey giant cells belong to measles infection.

Reference: Robbins and Cotran Pathologic Basis of Disease, 10th ed.

High-yield for: NEET PGINI-CETNExTFMGEUSMLEPLABMRCP

Written and medically reviewed by the StethoPrep medical team.