Maxillary cementifying fibroma: a case report with fine-needle aspiration cytology highlighting the expanding role of e-medicine in cytopathologist collaborations

Cementifying fibroma is an uncommon fibro-osseous lesion presenting in the oral cavity, which may present in children as an aggressive juvenile subtype of either psammomatoid or trabecular variant. Appropriate management, to achieve local control and prevent destructive expansion, requires early diagnosis, which fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) can provide rapidly in a minimally invasive manner. The role of FNAC is even more powerful in situations where medical facilities are limited or where surgical biopsy is contraindicated. We report a case of a 6-year-old boy from Lagos, Nigeria, whose initial diagnosis of cementifying fibroma was made on photographed digital images in jpeg format of FNAC slides, which were then e-mailed as attachments to Sydney, Australia and to Scottsdale, USA. The tumor was subsequently confirmed as a juvenile trabecular variant of cementifying fibroma on histopathology on a surgical excision in London, United Kingdom. The ability to electronically send cytopathology images around the world for a definitive second opinion is a practical example of the power of e-medicine to achieve an accurate FNAC diagnosis.