Squamous-cell carcinoma

Cutaneous squamous-cell carcinoma is the second most common skin cancer, accounting for over 1 million cases in the United States each year.

[5] Primary squamous-cell carcinoma of the thyroid shows an aggressive biological phenotype resulting in poor prognosis for patients.

[18] Cancer can be considered a very large and exceptionally heterogeneous family of malignant diseases, with squamous-cell carcinomas comprising one of the largest subsets.

[19][20][21] All SCC lesions are thought to begin via the repeated, uncontrolled division of cancer stem cells of epithelial lineage or characteristics.

This condition is called squamous-cell carcinoma in situ, and it is diagnosed when the tumor has not yet penetrated the basement membrane or other delimiting structure to invade adjacent tissues.

Once the lesion has grown and progressed to the point where it has breached, penetrated, and infiltrated adjacent structures, it is referred to as "invasive" squamous-cell carcinoma.

The consumption of high-fat dairy foods increases SCC tumor risk in people with previous skin cancer.

[30] Tobacco smoking and a dietary pattern characterized by high beer and liquor intake also increase the risk of SCC significantly.

Main histopathology features of squamous-cell carcinoma
A large head and neck squamous-cell carcinoma of the tongue as seen on CT imaging
Photograph of a squamous-cell carcinoma. The tumour is on the left, obstructing the bronchus (lung); beyond the tumour, the bronchus is inflamed and contains mucus.
Biopsy of a highly differentiated squamous-cell carcinoma of the mouth. Typical squamous-cell carcinoma cells are large with abundant eosinophilic cytoplasm and large, often vesicular, nuclei. [ 14 ] Haematoxylin & eosin stain
Cytopathology of squamous-cell carcinoma, keratinizing variant, with typical features. [ 15 ] Pap stain.
Cytopathology of squamous-cell carcinoma, nonkeratinizing variant, with typical features. [ 16 ] Pap stain. Yet, these findings are overall less specific than for keratinizing squamous-cell carcinoma, and most can be seen in other cancers such as adenocarcinoma as well (which, however, tends to have fine chromatin). [ 17 ]