[Cytopathological scrape examination of superficial lesions of skin and mucosal membrane--a cytological and histological comparative study of 148 cases]

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the reliability, practicability and limitations of cytopathological scrape method in the diagnosis of superficial lesions of skin and mucosal membrane.

Methods: The quantity of cells harvested by different collecting methods were compared in 18 cases of malignant tumors of the skin and mucosal membrane. The scrape method was performed in 456 cases, of which 148 cases had corresponding histological specimens.

Results: Glass slide scraping provides the most satisfactory cell numbers from the lesions of skin and mucosal membrane. The specificity for diagnosing benign lesion in 37 patients was 100% and that for diagnosing malignant tumors in 111 patients was 92.8% (103). The overall diagnostic accuracy was 94.6% (140/148). The false negative rate, false positive rate and the overall misdiagnostic rates were 7.2% (8/111) , 0, and 5.4% (8/148) respectively.

Conclusions: For cytopathological examination of superficial skin and mucosal membrane lesions, the glass slide scraping methodprovides broad applications with high diagnostic accuracy and advantages of simplicity, safety and efficiency. Certain limitations do exist, but can be resolved by histological examination of the lesion.