The value of fine needle aspiration biopsy in the diagnosis of metastatic liver tumours.
OBJECTIVE
Fine needle aspiration biopsy is a useful tool in the diagnosis of primary malignancies and metastatic lesions of the liver. The aim of this study was to determine the types and features of tumors diagnosed by this method and the difficulties in differential diagnosis.


METHODS
Fine needle aspiration biopsy smears from 704 patients with metastatic liver lesions were reviewed.


RESULTS
Among the metastastatic carcinomas in which their primary origin was identified, pulmonary carcinomas were the largest group. While colon adenocarcinoma was most prevalent (21.65%) where the primary origin of metastatic tumors was identified, followed by breast carcinoma (20.10%) and gastric adenocarcinoma (19.59%). The cases which cannot be differentiated from hepatocellular carcinoma in cytologic examination are invasive ductal carcinoma, renal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma.


CONCLUSIONS
Pulmonary and colon carcinomas are the common metastatic tumors of the liver.
Soyuer
Işin
I
Erciyes University School of Medicine, Department of Pathology, Kayseri. soyuerisin@yahoo.com
Ekinci
Cemil
C
Kaya
Muhsin
M
Bahar
Kadir
K