Fine needle aspiration cytology in the diagnosis and management of children and adolescents with Ewing sarcoma and peripheral primitive neuroectodermal tumor

Purpose. The utility of fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) in conjunction with immunocytochemistry in the diagnosis of Ewing sarcoma and peripheral primitive neuroectodermal tumor, the Ewing family of tumors (EFT), is retrospectively described. Patients and Methods. During a 10-year period 24 children and adolescents were diagnosed at Karolinska Hospital to have EFT of bone or soft tissue using FNAC. Criteria for diagnosis was based on cytomorphology combined with immunocytochemistry. The median age was 14.1 years (range 0.7-20.2). FNAC was performed within a median time of 1 day after referral. Results. Forty aspiration procedures were performed, 24 at primary work Up in 23 patients and 16 at suspected relapses in 10 patients, A primary cytologic diagnosis of EFT was obtained in 22 of 23 cases, In nine cases with primary disease there was no histologic confirmation. Two tumors were an FNAC diagnosed as neuroblastoma versus EFT, and EFT, respectively, Histopathology on resected tumor tissue from these patients showed EFT and small cell osteosarcoma, respectively. Suspected relapse was found to be positive at five and negative at 11 occasions, Immunocytochemistry was positive for CD45 (LCA) in 0/12, for desmin in 2/21, for MIC2 in 15/15, for NIB84 in 1/3, for NFP in 7/7, for NSE in 121/18, for S-100 in 411 and for vimentin in 18/19. Conclusions. The results Show that FNAC together with immunocytochemistry is a rapid, physically atraumatic and accurate method in diagnosing both primary EFT of bone and soft tissue as well as relapses. (C) 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc.