Abstract

The most important prognostic factor for lung carcinoma which is one of the most common cancer types, is the stage of the tumor. In this study, we assessed the prognostic importance of cytomorphological features of lung carcinoma in transthoracic fine needle aspiration biopsies with their clinicopathologic correlation. Fifty-one patients with lung carcinoma (17 squamous cell, 24 adeno-, 7 large cell and three adenosquamous carcinomas) were diagnosed cytologically by transthoracic fine needle aspiration. All tumors were resected completely. Median follow-up period was 32 months. The slides of the aspirates were retrieved from the archive and reviewed. The cellularity, cellular pleomorphism and cellular dyscohesion capacity of the malignant cells were assessed and scored. Although the overall survival of the patients with tumors revealing hypocellular aspirates were found to be dismal, this cytomorphological feature did not correlate with other clinicopathological parameters. The larger tumors tended to yield aspirates with more dyscohesive features, and cellular pleomorphism and cellularity scores were higher in these tumors. As a result, the cytomorphological features of early stage non-small cell lung carcinomas were not found to be reliable parameters regarding prognosis. However, further studies with large series including patients with advanced stage tumors should be awaited to clarify this issue.