Fine needle aspiration cytology of the pancreas.

Fine needle aspiration cytology has been increasingly used in recent years to diagnose pancreatic lesions. During a 6 year period, we performed 33 aspiration cytologies of the pancreas. Twenty-one were performed during exploratory laparotomy, seven under the guidance of computed tomography and five guided by ultrasonography. In seven cases inflammatory lesions were found, while 26 cases were of malignant tumors. Out of these patients, 10 underwent additional tissue biopsy. The correlation between cytology and histology was 100%. We suggest that fine needle cytology of pancreatic and other intraabdominal lesions can be considered an accurate diagnostic procedure.