THE VALUE OF INTRAOPERATIVE CYTOLOGY IN THORACIC-SURGERY

Cytological investigations are established in thoracic surgery beside intraoperative histological examinations. We use these intraoperative cytological investigations as an additional diagnostic option for surg ical decisions at our hospital for more than 15 years. 1008 intraopera tive cytological findings were compared with the final histological re sults in a retrospective study to investigate the security of these cy tological findings. The diagnostical sensitivity for the detection of any malignancy was 97,7 %. A correlation of cytological and histologic al results was found for benign tumors in 96,2 % and for inflammatory diseases in 89,2 %. The cytological and histological diagnoses regardi ng the real histological type of malignant tumors corresponded in only 667 of 834 cases. Due to these findings we conclude that intraoperati ve cytology is very useful to diagnose malignancy. However, additional diagnostic and clinical parameters have to be used for making final i ntraoperative decisions.