Langhans-type giant cells???

[ZooMommyRN, ADN, RN]

this was in a patho report of a lung core biopsy, drawing a blank in all my texts, Taber's and even web-md lol any idea what this was supossed to be? I'm guessing something was lost in translation between patho & coding, the nurses on shift gave me a deer in the headlights look and there weren't any physicians on the floor to ask while I was gathering info for tomorrow's clinical

[ZooMommyRN, ADN, RN]

Inadvertently found it on a web search of epithelioid histiocytes and it's not good *sigh* combine the info I found on that with the info on the cultured H.capsulatum var.capsulatum it's going to be an interesting 3 days of clinical because this patient will be there for sure

[CRNI-ICU20]

Are you talking about this???

Langerhans Cell - see Epidermal Dendritic Cell Epidermal Dendritic Cell - Also called the Langerhans Cell after its early discoverer. This particular dendirtic cell resides in the epidermis, the outer most layer of skin. It is a professional antigen presenting cell. Its job is to eat foreign substances (via phagocytosis) digest the antigens and then display part of the antigen on the cell surface. The dendritic cell then travels to the lymph system to alert Helper T-Cells that there is a potential invader. The Helper T-Cells then stimulate the production of Cytoxic or Killer T-Cells via chemicals called cytoxins. The Cytoxic T-Cells then go to the site of inflammation (directed by chemokines) and attack. You actually have about 500 Langerhans cells per square inch of normal skin. These cells are Phagocytes (they ingest foreign substances), but they do this as a means for their main job - antigen presentation to other cells, phagocytosis is not their main job or purpose (Macrophages fill that roll). A feature found in the Langerhans cells that is not found in other dendritic cells or other cells for that matter is the Birbeck granule - the function of this cell feature is not understood. Dysfunction of this cell or of the processes just discussed are suspected as the cause of Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis. The evidence of this is that cells found in the lesions associated with LCH contain Birbeck granules and stain the same as Langerhans cells for S100 and CD1a. There is some evidence that the cells involved are not normal - they look different from the normal cells found in the epidermis. Perhaps they change because they are 'activated' or perhaps they are mutated in some

http://members.cox.net/stokman1c/PrimerCells.html

Hope this helps....

[ZooMommyRN, ADN, RN]

Kind of, I'll have to dig through my browser history tomorrow (well later today lol) for the site I found, it's been an interesting journey through Davis' & Tabers tonight, what through me for a loop was how this was on a patho report from a lung biopsy, pretty sure I found it on wikipedia, tuberculosis, tuberculin & tuberculous are ALL over my research but not in the chart so going to ask instructor about that first thing before I enter the room