Anaplastic small cell (oat cell) carcinoma of the tonsils: report of two cases

Abstract

Two cases of anaplastic small cell (oat cell) carcinoma of the tonsils are presented. In the first, cervical metastases preceded the manifestation of the primary tumour by 2 years. In case 2 the tonsillar carcinoma was accompanied by a bronchial tumour of the same histological type and by cervical and axillary metastases. Positive Grimelius stain, positive immunohistochemical staining for chromogranin A and neurone‐specific enolase and the presence, in case 1, of membrane‐bound granules indicate that these tumours display many similarities with neuroendocrine carcinomas even if they originate from pluripotential ductal cells of tonsillar minor salivary glands and not from Kulchitsky‐like cells.