Cartilage
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Cartilage is a type of connective tissue that does not commonly come across the pathologist's desk.
It comes in three flavours:[1][2]
- Hyaline cartilage, e.g. trachea.
- Fibrocartilage, e.g. intervertebral disc.
- Elastic cartilage, e.g. epiglottis.
General
Features of cartilage:[3]
- Avascular.
- Extracellular matrix with bluish tinge.
- Round cells.
Hyaline cartilage
Features:[4]
- Chondrocytes within small pockets (lacunae) of extracellular matrix.
- Chondrocytes:
- Spherical nucleus.
- Prominent nucleolus.
- Clear cytoplasm.
- Extracellular matrix:
- Blue-white appearance on H&E stain -- key feature.
- Chondrocytes:
Image:
Tumours
Main article: Chondro-osseous tumours
Tumours of cartilage are dealt with in the article chondro-osseous tumours together with bone tumours.
Specific diagnoses
Synovial chondromatosis
- AKA synovial osteochondromatosis.
General
Radiology
- Intraarticular calcifications.
Microscopic
Features:[5]
- Hyaline cartilage +/- lobular surface.
- May have lacunae with binucleate cells.
- +/-Synovial hyperplasia - ribbon like tissue with an epithelium that has eosinophilic cytoplasm.
- Bone.
Images:
- Synovial chondromatosis (rsna.org).
- Synovial chondromatosis - high mag. (rsna.org).
- Synovial chondromatosis (webpathology.com).
See also
References
- ↑ Young, Barbara; Lowe, James S.; Stevens, Alan; Heath, John W.; Deakin, Philip J. (2000). Wheaters Functional Histology (4th ed.). Churchill Livingstone. pp. 173-5. ISBN 978-0004881973.
- ↑ URL: http://www.lab.anhb.uwa.edu.au/mb140/CorePages/Cartilage/Cartil.htm. Accessed on: 2 January 2011.
- ↑ Cormack, David H. (2001). Essential Histology (2nd ed.). Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. pp. 178-9. ISBN 978-0781716680.
- ↑ Cormack, David H. (2001). Essential Histology (2nd ed.). Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. pp. 178. ISBN 978-0781716680.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Murphey, MD.; Vidal, JA.; Fanburg-Smith, JC.; Gajewski, DA.. "Imaging of synovial chondromatosis with radiologic-pathologic correlation.". Radiographics 27 (5): 1465-88. doi:10.1148/rg.275075116. PMID 17848703.