title: Fine-needle aspiration cytology as a tool for the early detection of testicular relapse of acute lymphoblastic leukemia in children.
abstract: Fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) of the testis was done in 31 children (33 aspirates) with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) either as part of an end-therapy protocol (Group I, n = 20) or because of clinical suspicion of testicular relapse (Group II, n = 13). In Group I, none of the smears showed evidence of leukemic cells. However, two of these patients developed subsequent testicular relapse within 1 yr and were considered false-negative cases. Blast cells were present in nine patients of Group II; in the remaining four patients no neoplastic cells were observed in the smears and none experienced a relapse after a mean follow-up of 18 mo. Our findings indicate that FNAC can be a valuable method to evaluate clinically suspected testicular infiltration in children with ALL, and can be considered as an alternative procedure to surgical biopsy for screening testicular recurrence of childhood ALL.
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Citologia, Instituto Português de Oncologia de Francisco Gentil, Lisboa.
authors.forename: M M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: de Almeida
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chagas
authors.forename: J V
authors.initials: JV
authors.lastname: de Sousa
authors.forename: M E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Mendonça
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001707:Biopsy, Needle / Q000379:methods*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D054198:Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma / Q000473:pathology*; D012008:Recurrence; D013736:Testicular Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*