Oligodendroglioma, high power H&E

Last updated on Thursday, April 9 2009 by gliageek

This is an H&E stain of an oligodendroglioma. Note the numerous cells with small, dark nuclei, and surrounded by pale cytoplasm. This is what gives the tissue the appearance that is often described as looking like a bunch of fried eggs. Look at the slide of normal neuropil (below) for comparison. Although this fried egg appearance is felt to be classic for oligodendroglioma, it is an artifact of delayed fixation and therefore is not present within intraoperative frozen sections nor within promptly fixed biopsy material.

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Normal Neuropil for Comparison
This is a sample of normal-appearing neuropil, prepared with the Bodian stain. This image was taken at 100x magnification.

oligodendroglioma H&E with arrow
The unnecessarily large green arrow points to the dark nucleus of one of the scores of oligodendroglioma cells seen in this image. Note the white halo around the dark nucleus. This appearance is typical of an oligodendroglioma.