Diagnosis of Parathyroid Adenoma Using Intraoperative Squash Cytology and Frozen Sections-A Rare Case Report

The identification of parathyroid gland tissue and its distinction from surrounding structures such as thyroidgland, lymphoid, fibroadipose, and, rarely, thymic tissues on frozen section (FS) may be challenging owingto freezing artifact and small biopsy sent for FS. Intraoperative cytology (IC) provides valuable complementary morphologic details. We evaluated a case by IC alone, followed by interpretation with FS to reach a final interpretation using IC and FS together. IC is a valuable adjunct to FS during intraoperative consultation for evaluation of tissue in a parathyroid location. We present a rare case of parathyroid adenoma which was evaluated by relatively faster procedure of squash cytology first and then confirmed on FS for effective diagnosis. The present study infers that a combined approach of IC and FS is preferable to using FS or IC alone.