Clinical and histological study of a melanotic sarcoma of the choroid : with recurrence of the growth in the orbit five months after enucleation of the eyeball and one extra-scleral mass / by G. E. de Schweinitz and J. Dutton Steele.

  • De Schweinitz, G. E. (George Edmund), 1858-1938.
Date:
[1900]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Clinical and histological study of a melanotic sarcoma of the choroid : with recurrence of the growth in the orbit five months after enucleation of the eyeball and one extra-scleral mass / by G. E. de Schweinitz and J. Dutton Steele. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    The I'rts is typically bombe, thickened and infiltrated with small cells, pigment cells, and pigment granules, and is attached inacomplete posterior synechia to the capsule of the lens, the attachment itself being composed of a similar mixture of small cells, pigment grains, and pigmented cells. The iris-base is closely adherent to the angle of the chamber, which is abso- lutely occluded, affording thus a typical example of the adhesive inflam- mation in this region, which prevents filtration and causes the glaucomatous stage of intra-ocular growths. (Fig. II.) The a'h'ary body and ciliary processes are flattened and atrophied, and on the right side between the ciliary body and the pars ciliaris retinae is a narrow, spindle-shaped band of densely pigmented neoplastic tissue composed of cells like those presently to be described. The narrowed end of this deposit gradually merges into a strip of unaffected choroid, beyond which the second focus of sarcoma gradually develops in a large spindle-shaped area, reaching almost to the optic nerve entrance. The growth is very deeply pigmented by brownish granular pigment, some of which is contained in the cells and some in the intercellular substance. The cells of the tumor are mostly small spindle-shaped ones with oval nuclei, but there is also a considerable number of large spindle- shaped and round cells, with large deeply staining round nuclei, and also smaller round cells with similar nuclei. These cells are seen especially about the smaller arterioles, where they are massed together about the vessel and present the appearance of a perivascular sarcoma. From their position and appearance it appears most probable that they have arisen from the perithelium of the artery. It is only the arteries with true walls that have these surrounding masses of cells. There is a delicate inter- cellular substance between the cells that stains faintly with eosin, and a very delicate reticulum of connective tissue running through the tumor, but in no place does this attain an amount sufficiently large to be consid- ered a stroma. The blood vessels are fairly numerous. In many places they lack true walls, and are contained in a single layer of endothelium. In other places they have true walls, and are surrounded by the cylinder of cells already noted. In none of the sections do the walls of the vessels appear to be infiltrated by the growth. (Fig. III.) Upon the opposite side there is the same adhesive inflammation of the base of the iris and occlusion of the anterior chamber, with atrophy of the ciliary body and ciliary processes, but no neoplastic deposit in connection with the ciliary body. Further on begins a similar flat- tened mass of sarcoma, less pigmented than upon the opposite side.