Patient N.Q.A (33 years old, Bac Ninh) went to the hospital because he felt a mass in his left armpit. According to the patient, the mass appeared in his left armpit 1 year ago, and after many visits, he was diagnosed with reactive lymphadenitis and did not receive any treatment. This time, worried about the mass growing larger, the size of a lemon, painful, red, and leaking pink fluid, the patient went to the doctor.
MSc. Dr. Dang Van Quan - Department of Surgery, Medlatec General Hospital - said: To assess the abscess, the patient was punctured into the tumor and drained to see if there was bloody fluid. At the same time, to accurately assess the nature of the mass, whether it was abnormal or not, the team of doctors quickly consulted, ordered an MRI and then a biopsy to perform pathological diagnosis.
Histopathological results: The tumor has a diffuse structure, with malignant characteristics: Lymphoid cells, large size, alkaline, with nuclei, many mitotic nuclei; many macrophages in the tumor tissue, so the diagnosis: Malignant tumor, leading to non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
From the results of the two “gold” standards, histopathology and immunohistochemistry, consistent with the diagnosis of anaplastic large cell lymphoma, ALK positive, the patient was transferred to a tertiary hospital for treatment of anaplastic large cell lymphoma. At this hospital, before treatment, the tumor was re-sampled for pathological anatomy and the results were the same.
MSc.BSNT Thai Thi Hong Nhung - Medlatec Pathology Center - said: In the case of patient N.Q.A, if we only rely on clinical examination and imaging diagnostic techniques, we will think of an abscess and perform normal drainage, which will miss a dangerous pathology.
However, during the drainage process, the medical team quickly removed all the necrotic and rotten tissue and surrounding lymph nodes for pathological anatomy. Thanks to this "gold" standard, the type of lymphoma can be detected, thereby further evaluating the stage criteria and prognostic factors to have an accurate treatment regimen for the patient.
Pathology - Revolution in Advanced Disease Diagnosis
According to statistics, each year, Vietnam records 200,000 new cancer cases and 82,000 cancer deaths. The cancer mortality rate in Vietnam is 73.5%, while the world rate is 59.7% and developing countries rate is 67.9%.
Because most cancers progress silently, without obvious symptoms, or non-specific signs, patients are often subjective. When symptoms appear, medical examinations often detect them at a late stage, metastasis, causing expensive treatment costs, even threatening the patient's life. Therefore, cancer is currently a top health concern for people around the world, including Vietnam.
Advances in modern medicine have given birth to many modern diagnostic methods and techniques that help detect, diagnose early and treat diseases in general, and cancer in particular.
"Early diagnosis of cancer requires the results of blood and urine tests, imaging (X-ray, ultrasound, CT, MRI) and cytology and histopathology. In particular, pathology is considered a revolution in diagnosing cancer at the early stages.
Because pathology is a method of diagnosing diseases based on the analysis of tissue and cell samples of organs in the body that are biopsied during endoscopy, needle biopsy or during surgery and analyzed by a Pathologist under a microscope. The results after analysis will accurately determine the nature of the lesion or tumor" - Dr. Nhung said.
