Dahl, I. Ancient neurilemmoma (schwannoma) . Acta path. microbiol. scand. Sect. A, 85: 812-818, 1977. A clinical and light microscopic study of 11 patients with ancient neurilemmoma is presented. Ancient neurilemmoma is a cellular form of ordinary neurilemmoma, showing nuclear polymorphism and hyperchromasia. Seven patients were female and 4 were male; their ages ranged between 37 years and 81 years, with a median of 59 years. Seven tumours were 2.5 cm or larger in the widest diameter, and had been slowly enlarging for one year or more. All tumours were mlitary, encapsulated showing nuc!ear polymorphism and hyperchromasia without any mitotic activity. The differential diagnosis is discussed. Follow-up hformation available on all patients confirmed that the clinical course is benign.

No abstract

A clinical, light‐ and electronmicroscopic study of 14 patients with spindle cell lipoma is presented. Spindle cell lipoma is considered to be a distinctive lipomatous tumour histologically characterized by a mixture of fat cells and fibroblast‐like spindle cells, ultrastructurally similar to fibroblasts, in a matrix with varying amounts of collagen and mucosubstances. The tumours showed a predominance for elderly men and all but one were situated in the posterior neck, shoulder region or upper back. The tumours varied between 1 and 9 cm, with a median value of 5 cm, in the widest diameter and were entirely or almost entirely situated in the subcutaneous tissue. A follow‐up study of 11 patients, observed for 1–25 years, confirmed that the clinical course is benign. The differential diagnosis is discussed and it is emphasized that spindle cell lipoma is easily misinterpreted as sarcoma. Three tumours showed a pronounced nuclear polymorphism without mitotic activity, thought to be regressive in nature. The cellular change in these three tumours are presumed to be analogous with those in so called ancient neurilemmoma and therefore the name ancient spindle cell lipoma is proposed for the polymorphic spindle cell lipomas.

A combination of frozen sections and imprints significantly reduced the number of delayed intraoperative diagnoses. Intraoperative diagnostic accuracy was improved, although not to a statistically significant level. Choice of surgical procedure did not affect the diagnostic outcome.

Absenteeism because of illness was recorded for 346 children and 98 staff members at eight daycare centers in Gothenburg during a nine-month period between October 1987 and June 1988. A comparison was made with a similar, nationwide study, carried out in 1977 by the Swedish Central Bureau of Statistics. This comparison demonstrated that the absence of children and employees from daycare centers for health reasons was of the same proportion in the present study as that reported a decade earlier. Absenteeism because of illness among the 346 children at the daycare centers was also compared with absenteeism among 49 children in 14 groups run according to the three-family system (three to six children/group). It was found that absenteeism was at least twice as frequent among children at daycare centers than among those in the three-family system.