The mucoepidermoid carcinoma is a rare tumor arising in the bronchial submucosal
glands that shorts an intimate admixture of glandular elements and sheets of cells with
little or no definite squamous differentiation.
The low grade mucoepidermoid carcinoma is a characteristic and readily recognized
tumor. The very rare high grade mucoepidermoid carcinoma must be distinguished with
care from the much more common adenosquamous bronchogenic carcinoma.
The present case was a 45-year-old female patient with a several-year-history of
right chest pain and a few-day-history of coughing, fever, dyspnea, Under the
bronchoscopic impression of the bronchial adenoma, right middle and lower lobectomy
was done.
Grossly, the endobronchial mass, 1.2×1.2 ㎝, was located at the mainstem bronchus
branching to middle and lower lobe. It was well circumscribed. It occluded most of the
bronchus supplying the middle lobe and partially occluded the bronchus supplying the
lower lobe. The cut surface was whitish gray, relatively smooth and firm.
Microscopically, the tumor consisted primarily of large cells, growing in sheets.
Keratinization is absent in these epidermoid areas. Interspersed among these cells, are
mucus-producing individual cells. Mucous containing glands of various size and shape
are numerous and widely scattered in the tumor. Cellular atypism and mitoses were
absent.
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