10/26/2019 How to differentiate acute vs.

chronic inflammation in sections | Pathology Student

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How to di erentiate acute vs. chronic
in ammation in sections
Feb 6, 2012

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10/26/2019 How to differentiate acute vs. chronic inflammation in sections | Pathology Student

One thing that’s hard to get the hang of in pathology is the di erence in
appearance between chronic and acute in ammation in tissue sections.U It’s
pretty easy to tell a neutrophil from a lymphocyte in blood smears – but it’s a
a
di erent story in tissue sections. Someone will show a low-power image in
lecture and say it’s obviously chronic in ammation – but how are you
supposed to be able to recognize that?

The most helpful idea to keep in mind, I think, is how “busy” the collection of
cells looks. If you think about the morphologic di erences between
neutrophils and lymphocytes, the most obvious one is the nucleus. The
nucleus of a neutrophil has several lobes (which is why it’s sometimes called
a polymorphonuclear cell), but the nucleus of a lymphocyte is a single, large,
dark circle.

When you look at a bunch of neutrophils in section, you’ll see a lot of cells
with multi-part nuclei that look like little Mickey Mouse ears. Check out the
upper photo. Acute in ammation looks messy, or busy, like a bunch of dots
of all di erent sizes.

When you look at a bunch of lymphocytes in section, though, you’ll see a

bunch of similarly-sized, uniform, dark blue dots. Check out the lower photo.
Chronic in ammation looks more uniform, like somebody had a rubber
stamp of a little purple dot, and they just stamped it over and over on the
slide.

I kinda want to clean up the top photo.

 
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7 Comments
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shurkella on February 6, 2012 at 12:37 pm

Your explanation is very demonstrative and a well-remembered.

Thank you)

Afraa Kamil on February 29, 2012 at 12:16 pm

nice info….thanks alot.

dokLing on March 4, 2012 at 3:35 am

Yes… It is a lot easier to remember…

jaime on January 22, 2013 at 4:13 am

thank you for you info. it cleaned up a lot!!!

prasanna on April 14, 2013 at 11:38 am

Its easy to remember and easy to identify. Thanq mam

nancy on July 31, 2014 at 1:19 am

very nice explanation thanks

hilmy on May 12, 2019 at 11:18 am

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thank you so much kind stranger

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