1987 Volume 26 Issue 1 Pages 77-82
The concentration method using YM fixative solution was applied to sputum cytology of 82 patients with lung cancer and its efficacy was examined.
Procedure of this method is as follows: Morning-cough sputum collected by a series of three days is stored in a Mucous sol tube (Muto Pure Chem. Co. Ltd., Tokyo) containing YM solution. The solution is then centrifuged at 1, 500 rpm for five minutes, and the sediment is smeared on the clean glass slides thinly coated with 0.1% poly-L-lysine. After air drying, smears are re-fixed in 95% ethyl alcohol and stained by the modified Papanicolaou's method.
The overall accuracy was 76.8%(63/82 cases) in the smears made by this method. Malignant cells could be detected in 27 (87.1%) out of 31 squamous cell carcinomas, 22 (64.7%) out of 34 adenocarcinomas, 13 (86.7%) out of 15 small cell carcinomas and one (50%) out of two large cell carcinomas. Examined patients contained 34 surgical cases. Of these surgical cases, malignant cells were identified in 24 cases (70.6%). Using this method, positive results were obtained in 13 (61.9%) out of 21 cases with clinical stage I cancer, in seven (87.5%) out of eight cases with stage II cancer, in 27 (77.1%) out of 35 cases with stage HI cancer and in 13 (76.5%) out of 17 cases with stage IV cancer. Also, 44 (83.0%) out of 53 cases showing abnormal bronchoscopic findings and 16 (59.3%) out of 27 patients without bronchoscopic alterations were positive in the smears made by this method.
The results in the present study indicate that this procedure is a simple and reliable method for sputum cytology and is useful not only in hospital but also in mass survey.
