Cytological diagnosis of basal cell carcinoma and actinic keratosis, using Papanicolaou and May-Grunwald-Giemsa stained cutaneous tissue smear

摘要

Dear Editor, I read with great interest the recent paper by Eidi Chiistensen et al. on the cytological diagnosis of basal cell carcinoma and actinic keratosis, using Papanicolaou and May-Grunwald-Giemsa stained cutaneous tissue smear published in Cytopathology online on 4th October 2007.] I just have a couple of comments that I would like to make regarding the technique used.Firstly, I do not think that it is a particularly sensible approach to take a punch biopsy before proceeding to the scrape cytodiagnosis, as this will certainly confuse and contaminate the fields. Surely it would be more logical to undertake the scraping before performing the biopsy.The second point is related to the particular technique used. I note that the area was scraped; however, with the raised rolled edges typical of a basal cell carcinoma, I think that there is a risk of missing a representative cell sample. I would therefore advocate the alternative technique of fine needle aspiration at the base of the margin in additionto the scraping techniques.