Cytologic diagnosis of pulmonary carcinoma on bronchoscopic brushing material.

The material obtained by brushing procedures under visual control from 370 consecutive patients with histologically confirmed primary carcinoma of the lung who underwent bronchoscopy was examined cytologically. The sputum of 276 of these patients was also investigated. The overall sensitivity of the bronchoscopically obtained cytology was 0.67; however, the values were 0.78 and 0.28, respectively, for the cases with and without visible lesions of the bronchi. Sputum examination enhanced the sensitivity to 0.79 overall and to 0.84 and 0.61, respectively, for the two groups, with a greater benefit for the group with negative bronchoscopy. The overall cytologic typing accuracy for 252 cases was 0.66, with a range of 0.19 to 0.86, depending on the histologic type. Typing failures were essentially related to adenocarcinomas and large-cell carcinomas.