Prostate gland & seminal vesicles
Neuroendocrine tumors
Small cell neuroendocrine carcinoma
Author: Komal Arora, M.D.
Topic Completed: 1 March 2012
Minor changes: 24 November 2020
Copyright: 2003-2021, PathologyOutlines.com, Inc.
PubMed search: small cell neuroendocrine carcinoma[title] prostatic
Table of Contents
Definition / general | Microscopic (histologic) description | Microscopic (histologic) images | Positive stains | Negative stains | Differential diagnosisCite this page: Arora K. Small cell neuroendocrine carcinoma. PathologyOutlines.com website. https://www.pathologyoutlines.com/topic/prostatesmallcell.html. Accessed January 22nd, 2021.
Definition / general
- Pure or combined with ordinary ductal adenocarcinoma
- Diagnosis restricted to cases having either pure or mixed with an adenocarcinoma component, where the cells resemble small-cell carcinoma of the lung (and elsewhere) histologically
- Serum PSA levels are often not elevated
- May cause Cushings syndrome, syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone secretion
- Some have endocrine features
- Very aggressive, cannot monitor with PSA (unreliable)
- Survival usually less than 1 year (Arch Pathol Lab Med 1986;110:1041)
- Rarely associated with limbic encephalitis (Mod Pathol 1999;12:814)
Microscopic (histologic) description
- Usually large number of apoptotic cells; otherwise resembles lung small cell carcinoma
- Typical features of small cell carcinoma, including high mitotic rate, frequent apoptotic bodies, crush artifact and DNA encrustation of blood vessel walls (Azzopardi phenomenon) are present
Microscopic (histologic) images
Images hosted on other servers:
HE staining
Immunostaining for CD56
Positive stains
- Chromogranin, NSE, TTF1 (Mod Pathol 2000;13:238), CD56 (Am J Surg Pathol 2008;32:65)
Negative stains
- PSA, PAP (Am J Surg Pathol 2008;32:65)
Differential diagnosis
- Large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma: extremely rare, described in case reports and in one small study; large and polygonal tumor cells with moderate to abundant cytoplasm, coarsely granular nuclear chromatin and prominent nucleoli (Mod Pathol 2006;19:1358)
