Rhabdomyoma of the parotid gland / by T. Mitchell Prudden.

  • Prudden, T. Mitchell.
Date:
[1883]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Rhabdomyoma of the parotid gland / by T. Mitchell Prudden. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    tumour presents the structure of normal parotid gland. The remainder of the tumour consists largely of connective tissue, for the most part dense, but in some places loose in texture. Embedded in this, and quite uniformly distributed, are fascicles or lobular masses, consisting of striated muscle fibres in various stages of development, and surrounded by loose connective tissue. These lobules of muscle tissue are abundantly supplied with bloodvessels, and many of them contain numerous small spheroidal cells similar in appearance to leucocytes. These lobules of muscle tissue make up about one-fourth of the entire bulk of the tumour. The most fully develoj)ed of the muscle fibi'es vary greatly in diameter, ranging between 0.035 and 0.005 mm. They are entirely without a sarcolemma, elongated nuclei being irregularly and scantily distributed along their sides, and they are grouped in an exceedingly irregular manner, twisting and curling and crossing one another. Both transverse and longitudinal striations are clearly defined, but Krause’s and Hensen’s lines are only occasionally faintly visible. Thickly scattered among these more fully developed muscle fibres, in most of the lobules, are numerous large, finely granular, spheroidal, ovoidal, and broadly fusiform cells, ranging in the shortest diameter from 0.01 to 0.02 mm., and having small, mostly peri¬ pherally placed, nuclei. These cells are in many cases closely clustered along the walls of the bloodvessels, from the proliferation of whose peri¬ pheral cells they appear to originate. The bodies of these cells are deeply stained by eosin, assuming the same tint as the more fully developed mus¬ cle fibres. Between these ovoidal or elongated simply granular cells with peripheral nuclei and the incompletely developed but distinctly striated muscle fibres, all intermediate forms are found in close contiguity. The elongated cells appear at first to lie in rows, and then to form a nodulated^ longer or shorter cord, upon which, here and there, in many cases, the first faint indications of transverse striations may be seen. Fig. 1 shows some of these intermediate forms. Fig. 1. The small whitish bodies, above mentioned, vary in diameter from 0.2 to 1.0 mm. They are situated sometimes within the lobules of muscle fibres, and sometimes in the connective tissue between the latter. They appear to be invariably associated with small arteries, surrounding them or lying close at one side. In some sections which were suitably cut, a branching artery could be seen, upon whose larger and smaller divisions