Probably one of the most graphic images I've shared so far. Behold, a leg cut in half. This was bathed in formalin, that's why it turned into the color it is.
It's a leg of a 14-year old male treated with chemotherapy prior to amputation. He was a diagnosed case of Conventional Osteosarcoma, Fibroblastic Type with a widest tumor dimension of 8cm just confined to the proximal tibia.
There are other variants of Osteosarcoma and the cancer itself is common on the younger age group where growth spurts happen which becomes an enticing place to grow as a tumor. Now part of the risk is genetic predisposition but we won't go into those extensive details here.
Dealing with post chemo specimens adds an extra layer of work when it comes to sectioning. Imagine taking a slab of the tumor and then separating the areas with an imaginary tables just to map out the extent of tumor involvement.
The purpose is to determine the extent and whether the chemotherapy killed the tumor cells. Naturally, if more of the tumor cells got killed it spells out good prognosis but this is also influenced by the extent of involvement whether the tumor has already spread to other parts of the body.
I forgot to take photomicrographs of the specimen as it wasn't really on my head to make some content out of each specimen I process. To compensate, I found an exact image of what I saw under the microscope from here.
I haven't been cutting specimens due to my post moved to the clinical pathology where I'm mostly expected to be on the laboratory or doing miscellaneous work. I was lucky enough to get this one done because I needed the practice. I'm sure I'll know pain once I'm back on the histopath department.
If you made it this far reading, thank you for your time.