Abstract
With a view to improving the diagnosis of thoracicdiseasis, the author has devised a new-developedneedle of percutaneous aspiration biopsy, and usedit in 230 cases of thoracic disease, thus testing itsvalue as a diagnostic tool for especially, pulmonarycarcinoma. Our needle is finer than Silverman's.The outer cylinder is 1mm in diameter, and theinner cylinder 0.8mm, at the tip of which hasseveral fine protrusions. These were found tosample cells successfully. Among of 230 casesdiagnosis was established by operation or biopsy in145 cases, including 96 cases of pulmonary carcinoma.Malignant cells were noted in 99 (48.6%) of 117 malignant thoracic lesions. The rate of diagnosisin 96 cases of pulmonary carcinoma studiedby puncture was 48.9% by sputum smears, 47.6% by TV-brushing, whereas as high as 48.4% by ourmethod, when applied to small tumors 2cm or less, our method has given a much higher positive rateof 75%. Complications have included hemoptysis in 2.4%, and pneumothorax in 4.0%. In all 17 cases (6.9%) they have been slight. Since our puncturemethod is relative safe, the author believes that itshould be wedely used in dignosing peripheralpulmonary lesions. Finally, morphological comparison has been made between free cancer cells insputum and those collected by the puncture methodThe author has found that the former, being detachedfree cells, have been subject to degeneration in theprocess of expectoration, whereas the latter, collecteddirect from the tumor, are fresh cells showing littledegeneration. Especially, marked differences havebeen noted between them in intranuclear structure.
