[The immediate interpretation for fine-needle aspiration cytology].
From December 1990 to November 1992, 2005 cases of immediate interpretation for fine-needle aspiration (FNA) cytology were performed, of which 727 cases were confirmed by surgical pathology. A mobile cytologic laboratory (a cart loaded with a dual viewing microscope, Liu's staining solutions, hair dryer, and slides) can be moved to the Out-patient Department, wards and Computed Tomography room, where clinicians perform aspiration and pathologists read smears. Immediate verbal diagnoses are documented to patients' charts and listed in cytopathologic files. Immediate interpretation in this entire series yielded a sensitivity 92.5%; specificity, 98.1%; false-positive rate, 1.1%; false-negative rate, 3.2%; positive predictive value (PV), 97.3%; negative PV, 94.7% and efficiency, 95.7%. The cause of false-negative results in the 23 cases probably came from the hesitation in making an immediate diagnosis. Most of these cases were malignant lymphoma or breast carcinoma. The roles of immediate cytodiagnosis are (1) to decrease the inadequate rate of FNA specimens; (2) to render preliminary diagnosis for clinicians to make decisions; (3) to provide on-site teaching material for both clinicians and pathology residents to better understand clinicopathological correlations; (4) to act as the initial diagnostic procedure in the evaluation of a superficial palpable mass. This study shows that immediate interpretation for FNA cytology is a simple, rapid, accurate and noninvasive diagnostic procedure that can be routinely used for superficial palpable masses.
Chang
M C
MC
Department of Pathology, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taiwan, R.O.C.
Ho
W L
WL
D001707:Biopsy, Needle; D003581:Cytodiagnosis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000473:pathology