Aparna Behura, K. Mohini Rao
BACKGROUND Respiratory cytology has assumed a primary diagnostic place in the makeup for patients with pulmonary disease. Diagnosis of cellular specimens from the respiratory tract is established throughout the world as a vital diagnostic procedure in evaluation of any patient with a suspected lung lesion in which morphological confirmation is indicated. At present, most of the major medical institution throughout the world utilise some combination of various cytological specimens in the diagnostic workup of patient with suspected lung cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS Samples were collected from patients with definite lung lesions and subjected to fiberoptic bronchoscopy referred from various departments of V.S.S. Medical College Hospital. Specimens of brush cytology and biopsy from the site of lesion of histopathological study were included. RESULTS Majority of them were males (88%). Majority of cases were in the age group of 51 to 60 years and were of inflammatory origin. Inflammatory cases age range was from 21-70 years, whereas for malignant cases, the age range was from 31-70 years. Both inflammatory and malignant lesions were more common in older age groups (5th to 6th decade). Radiologically, the zonal distribution of lesions revealed maximum number of cases in the mid zone 16 cases (37.20%), which coincided with the central lesions of bronchoscopy. CONCLUSION Bronchoscopic brush cytology is a simple, safe and inexpensive procedure for diagnosis of lung lesions.
