抄録
Several improvements have been deviced to remove the mucus of sputum and to offer a higher concentration of the cells in sputum cytology. These methods include many complicated steps and require expensive instruments. We have performed to concentrate cellular elements in sputum by means of liquefaction of mucus using acetylcysteine.
Sputum was soaked in 50 per cent alcohol for 24 hours. The sputum was separated from the alcohol, and then was soaked in 20% acetylcysteine solution, pH 7. The mass of sputum easily dissolved within an hour. The homogenous fluid was centrifuged for ten minutes. The sediment was washed by a small amount of 50 per cent alcohol, and then it was spread on slides and allowed to dry in air. The routine Papanicolaou staining method was employed.
The cellular elements was not morphologically altered by the mucolytic agent. The squamous epithelial cells, columnar epithelial cells and malignant tumor cells were stained without changes in cytoplasmic and nulear minutiae.Correct diagnosis by 72 per cent was made using our concentrating method on the study of 85 cases of lung cancer.
Compared with the ordinary direct method, the improved technic reported in this paper demonstrated marked improvement by 26 per cent in the accuracy of cytological diagnosis of lung cancer.
