Introduction: Within the last years one discusses more and more about the association of the cytological examination with the histological one, becoming an important complementary examination. Casebook record. 163 patients were taken in the study, age between 37-79 years old, who showed clinical and radiological signs of broncho-pulmonary cancer. At all the patients a fibro-bronchoscopic examination was performed, with harvesting of material for histological and cytological examination.
Material and methods: The histological examination was performed on bioptic pieces, fixed with 10% formalin and colored with Hematoxylin-Eosin, Masson and Van Gieson. The cytological examination was performed on material harvested by aimed bronchial brushing and/or on stamps from bioptic material, coloured Giemsa.
Results: By histological examination (in the 163 cases) the diagnostic of broncho-pulmonary cancer was given with the establishing of the histological type of cancer in 87.12% of the cases, at 17 patients (10.42%) dysplasia was diagnosed and in 2.45% (4 cases) the examination was negative. Out of the 163 cytologically examined cases, in 66.25% (108 patients) diagnose of broncho-pulmonary cancer could be given and the histological type could be established. In 11.66% of the patients the cytological examination was negative and in 22.08% of the cases the cytology was strongly suggestive for broncho-pulmonary cancer, but one could not determine the histological type. According to the current classification of the broncho-pulmonary cancer by histological examination, we diagnosed the NSCLC type (non small cell lung carcinoma) by 123 patients (75.41%) and by cytological examination, by 124 (76.07%); the type SCLC (small cell lung carcinoma) was identified by histological examination in 18 cases (11.04%) while the cytological examination allowed the highlighting of this type of cancer in 5 cases (3.06%).
Conclusions: Our data indicate the fact that the cytological examination on stamps from bioptic material or on that obtained by bronchial brushing offers a very high percentage of positive results, close to the histological one, but the establishing of the histological type of broncho-pulmonary cancer is more difficult by cytological examination, due to the heterogeneous structure of the NSCLC tumors. Despite this, the cytology may be extremely useful in diagnose of the small, necrotic tumors as well as in that of the carcinomas with non-small and small cells.