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Vol.48 No.1 contents | Japanese/English |
 | Full Text of PDF (712K) Article in Japanese |
- Review Article -
Effectiveness of Clinical Cytology in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Lung Cancer
Takeshi Horai11Department of Thoracic Medical Oncology, Cancer Institute Hospital, Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research, Japan
Pulmonary cytology is mostly employed as the final diagnosis for lung lesions when there are technical limitations of pulmonary biopsy. Cytology makes it possible to predict the histologic type necessary for the treatment decision. Pulmonary cytology is classified into sputum cytology, brushing cytology and needle aspiration cytology of lesions by bronchoscopy or fluoroscopy. Therefore, it is important to choose the most appropriate technique according to the location of lesions. Although the accuracy of diagnosis by cytology depends on biopsy, histology, location or progression of lesions, the positive rate by cytology exceeds 90% and closely corresponds with histology. In particular, sputum cytology is effectively applied to radiologically occult early central-type cancers. The correlation of the morphology of lung cancer cells with post-operative outcome or the effects of chemotherapy has been extensively studied, and progress has been made with examinations of lung cancer cells at the molecular level. Practical feedback on the clinical applications of cytological studies is anticipated.
key words: Lung cancer, Pulmonary cytology, Early central-type cancer, Cytological criteria, Cellular finding in clinical malignancy
JJLC 48 (1): 5-10, 2008
