Morphological characteristics of metastatic brain tumors and their primary sources

Abstract

Evaluation of morphological differences between primary tumors and their intracerebral metastases was performed in operational specimens from 41 patients with intracerebral metastases (carcinoma in 80,5±6,19 %, melanoma in 19,5±6,19 %) and primary tumors: skin melanoma (8 cases), lungs carcinoma (17 cases), breast carcinoma (16 cases). Standard basic micromorphological processing was performed. The structure of intracerebral metastatic melanoma foci had similarities with primary foci, but with higher atypicity, vascularity, surrounding by "muffs" of tumor cells, hemorrhagic, inflammatory and necrotic foci. Tumor tissue of lungs-derived metastatic focus repeated the structure of primary tumor, in patches glandular formations go with solid layers of acinar structures in the center, stroma in these places is not prominent giving an evidence of de-differentiation. In primary breast tumors and their brain metastases morphology was almost identical. It was proved that brain metastatic tumor tissue is characterized by lower differentiation comparing with primary tumor