Immunophenotyping by flow cytometry of fine needle aspirates in the diagnosis of lymphoproliferative disorders: A retrospective study

In order to determine the value of flow cytometric (FCM) immunophenotyping of fine-needle aspirates (FNA) in the diagnosis and classification of lymph oproliferative diseases, 61 tissue samples were studied and compared with t he cytologic/histological results. In vivo and ex vivo FNA biopsy yielded t he material for FCM, which comprised an extensive number of lymphoid cell m arkers. In all but three cases sufficient cells were collected. Overall, ma lignancy was diagnosed in 33 cases from a total of 47 (70.2%), and in the r emaining cases malignancy was not detected. Eleven cases were correctly dia gnosed as reactive processes (11/11). There were no false positive cases of malignancy, as diagnosed by FCM-FNA. The best accuracy was achieved in the low-grade B-cell lymphomas and lymphoblastic lymphoma/leukemia. We conclud e that in a significant number of cases, FCM-FNA permits the separation bet ween lymphoid malignancies and reactive processes without false positive re sults. It was found to be particularly useful in the differential diagnosis of mantle-cell and small-lymphocytic lymphoma and in the identification of lymphoblastic lymphoma/leukemia. J. Clin. Lab. Anal. 13:224-228, 1999. (C) 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.