Cellular schwannoma: report of a case diagnosed intraoperatively with the aid of cytologic imprints.

The diagnosis of cellular schwannoma in intraoperative consultation is difficult because of the hypercellularity and deep location, which may lead to errors. The recognition of cytologic features together with the histological appearance are of great importance to make the correct diagnosis. An accurate diagnosis of this variant of schwannoma is important because other spindle cell tumors display differences in treatment and clinical behavior. We report a demonstrative case of cellular schwannoma arising in retroperitoneum of a 52-yr-old woman in which the cytologic imprints were useful to make an accurate diagnosis intraoperatively. Briefly, the differential diagnosis is discussed. Copyright 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc.