Jf. Nasuti et al., Diagnostic value of fine-needle aspiration in supraclavicular lymphadenopathy: A study of 106 patients and review of literature, DIAGN CYTOP, 25(6), 2001, pp. 351-355
The simplicity and safely of the fine-needle aspiration (FNA) make it a use
ful procedure for the initial evaluation of supraclavicular lymphadenopathy
. We analyzed data (106 patients) in combination with the data of three rec
ently published studies (total 301 patients) to make the observations more
meaningful. The usefulness of various ancillary techniques such as special
histochemical stains (SHC), immunohistochemistry (IHC), and flow cytometry
(FCM) in establishing specific diagnoses was also examined. Analysis of the
combined data from 407 patients helps to reinforce certain trends observed
by previous investigators such as the marked predominance of metastatic ca
rcinoma (63%) over lymphoid malignancies (9%), reactive (19%) and infectiou
s processes (2%), and the tendency of abdominal and pelvic primary carcinom
as to metastasize to the left supraclavicular lymph node (SCLN) (88%). In a
ddition, the current study confirms utility of performing IHC, FCM, and SHC
on the aspirate material obtained from supraclavicular lymph nodes, becaus
e in 19 of the 22 cases (86%), these ancillary techniques provided suppleme
ntal diagnostic information critical to patient management. (C) 2001 Wiley-
Liss, Inc.