A rare case of extra medullary plasmacytoma (EMP) of thyroid gland in a 60 year old male, occurring against a background of Hashimoto's thyroiditis is reported. The fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) initially done as an outpatient procedure, showed atypical epithelial cells on a background of amyloid. Considering these findings we gave a diagnosis of medullary carcinoma. Histology of the total thyroidectomy specimen showed an extensive infiltration of neoplastic plasma cells against a background of Hashimoto's thyroiditis, with a bizarre Hurthle cell change. Immunohistochemistry on the histology sections confirmed the diagnosis of solitary plasmacytoma of thyroid against a background of Hashimoto's thyroiditis.

Extra-pulmonary tuberculosis is the presence of disease in an organ without obvious involvement of the lungs (World Health Organization, Tuberculosis Fact sheet, 2006). The present article focuses on the incidence of extra-pulmonary tuberculosis as an emerging and clinically significant disease to be reckoned with in the present era. It also highlights fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) as an inexpensive, less invasive procedure for early diagnosis of such tuberculosis and timely initiation of specific therapy. All cases of proved tuberculosis presenting to the M.V.J. Medical College and Research Hospital were recorded over a period of two years (2008-2010); and categorized as pulmonary and extra-pulmonary cases. A total of 96 cases of tuberculosis were observed; extra-pulmonary tuberculosis was seen in 64 cases. Of these 56 cases were from lymphnodes and 8 from extra-nodal sites which included tuberculous dactylitis (two cases), tuberculous mastitis (two cases), tuberculous synovial effusion (one case), pericardial effusion (one case), epididymo-orchitis (one case), and cold abscess (one case). The cytology patterns observed included granulomatous inflammation and necrosis with or without acid fast bacilli.