Atlas of clinical cytology

A contribution to precise cytodiagnosis and cytological differential diagnosis with 3300 full-colour illustrations. There are several illustrated textbooks on clinical or diagnostic cytology. These textbooks deal with the correlation between anatomy, histopathology and cytology. They also cover the main cytological standard patterns, staining, the organization of cytological laboratories and screening. However there is a need for a comprehensive guide dealing with precise cytodiagnosis and cytological differential diagnosis. In particular there are far too few coloured illustrations with Giemsa. It is essential that they become available because the Giemsa stain is such an excellent tool for handling differential diagnostic problems. Therefore this atlas contains some 3000 coloured illustrations in Giemsa. Ever since | started to work on needle aspiration cytology in 1947 and exfoliative cytology in 1948, as an extension of my work in blood and bone marrow cytology, | have been collecting material and thinking about these two subjects: differential cytodiagnosis and precise cytodiagnosis. | had to, because we clinicians cannot be satisfied with a report stating merely malignancy or absence of malignant cells. In order to know how to treat the patient we must know exactly which tumour is involved and the degree of (de)differentiation. Moreover in benign cases we have to know exactly what the ‘benign’ disease is, because benign diseases if inappropriately or unopportunely treated may be as killing or mutilating as an anaplastic tumour. For over 25 years | have been systematically documenting all my cases. Although this collection covers a fairly wide range of clinical cytology, | requested the aid of several prominent cytologists to fill the gaps. They provided over a quarter of the 3300 illustrations, mostly dealing with various rare cases, special fields of cytology and specific techniques. Sometimes the contributions were cases analogous to ones | already had but complementary or better. In the latter case | removed my own pictures as nobody should be interested in what | have seen or figured out myself if somebody else has done a better job. Oddly enough this attitude also has led to the rejection of slides | had asked for a year or so before, because someone else or | myself made better ones in the interim. The size of the illustrations is a compromise between the greatest possible number of figures and the smallest usable magnification. Often this makes it advisable to use a magnifying glass or glasses +2 or +3 D. Several times the use of a magnifying glass is specifically recommended in the text in order to see the details better.